Inderjeet Sambyal
Recently a 2yrs old child,who was the son of Mandal president BJP in Rajouri Jasbir Singh was killed in a grenade attack, as the militants throw a grenade on the house of Jasbir Singh. “It was a planned attack, our movement was monitored,” said Ramesh Singh father of Jasbir Singh who was also injured. There are series of incidents,where BJP leaders have sacrificed their lives for the nation right from the era of insurgency in Kashmir. On 14 Sept 1989, Tika Lal Taploo, who was a lawyer and leader of Kashmir unit was murdered by JKLF in home in Srinagar. After that in 1992 a BJP leader and renowned public figure Satish Bhandari was killed in broad daylight by militants. On November 1 2018 Anil Parihar, the state secretary of BJP along with his brother Ajeet Parihar was murdered by the terrorists of Hizbul Mujahidin. Moreover killing of BJP leader and Sarpanch from Redwani, Kulgam, Jammu and Kashmir, Sh Ghulam Rasool Dar and his wife. I have no words in condemning the cowardly attempt to discourage PM Narendra Modi’s determined commitment to grassroot democracy in the Valley.
Militant attacks on India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party politicians in Kashmir have intensified since the Bharatiya Janta Party Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi abrogated the region’s special constitutional status.
On June 2, anxiety and trepidation engulfed south Kashmir’s Tral town when militants shot dead a local leader of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Rakesh Pandita, 55, was murdered hours after Indian security forces had killed the brother of a slain militant, Muhammad Amin Malik, 38, inside a police station in Tral.
Markets were shut as anger of the killing spread through the town. In the evening, a group of three suspected militants barged into a house, barely 500 meters away from the police station, and shot dead Pandita.
Asifa Mushtaq, 24, was also wounded in the attack.
Although BJP leaders have been killed in Kashmir after the party came to power in 2014, militant attacks on them have intensified since New Delhi abrogated the region’s special constitutional status in August 2019.
So far, 17 BJP leaders have been killed in Kashmir since the revocation of the special status.
So far, 22 people have lost their lives due to the campaign.
Pandita had been living with his family in Jammu since the outbreak of anti-India militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s.
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He was one among several BJP candidates who won the Municipal elections and returned to Tral.
He died in the town where he was born and spent his early years of youth with his Muslim friends.
Mushtaq told that she was horrified when some gunmen barged into their kitchen and fired indiscriminately.
“I felt dread and numbness in my right leg. I regained conscience after surgery in the hospital,” she said.
“We are shell-shocked. Everyone in the family has turned numb,” said his distraught brother Sushant Pandita, who has yet to come to terms with the politician’s death.
“He never received any death threats before, but anti-India forces must have been upset with his developmental work in Tral,” Sushant said.
He is disappointed that many people in Tral benefited from his brother’s work, but no one protested his killing.
“A symbolic protest in Tral against his killing would have been a consolation,” he said.
Why BJP leaders are facing militant attacks?
“Only the BJP workers are being targeted in Kashmir because they are the only Indian nationalist voice here who are working day and night tirelessly for the welfare of this nation irrespect of caste,creed and religion.
BJP workers are engaged in developmental work at the grassroots level, which, antagonizes Pakistan and militants in Kashmir.
A police official, in a press statement also said BJP leaders were being targeted by militants because “only they are active and vocal on the ground. while the rest of pro-India politicians are maintaining tacit and tactical silence.”
The first killing of a BJP politician after the abrogation of Article 370 was that of senior leader Wasim Bari, who was shot dead along with his father and brother in July 2020 by suspected militants in northern Kashmir’s Bandipora area.
“The agenda of the BJP to integrate Kashmir with India has turned its workers into soft targets for the local militants.”
Security beefed up
Even as Pandita’s killing didn’t spark a resignation spree of pro-India political workers, authorities have increased the security of 20 BJP workers in southern Kashmir.
Kashmir’s Inspector General of Police, Vijay Kumar, issued an advisory for all protected persons in the region, saying they shouldn’t go anywhere without personal security officers in the wake of the killing of Pandita, who was unaccompanied by his security guards at the time of the militant attack.
Kumar requested all the protected persons not to violate the advisory and risk their lives. But one thing these terrorists group should also remember that by doing such killings of innocent workers,they will not break their moral, zeal, passion and dedication for this land called Bharat Maa. Jai Hind
(The author is State Spokesperson J&K BJP)
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