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Kashmir - Principal Supinder Kour and teacher Deepak Chand of a government school in Srinagar were shot dead inside the school on October 7


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https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/slain-school-principal-cremated-in-srinagar-amid-protests-by-sikh-community/article36893287.ece

 

Slain school principal cremated in Srinagar amid protests by Sikh community

author-deafault.pngPTI
SRINAGAR, OCTOBER 08, 2021 14:11 IST
UPDATED: OCTOBER 08, 2021 14:11 IST

 

 

Principal Supinder Kour and teacher Deepak Chand of a government school in Srinagar were shot dead inside the school on October 7.

 

The last rites of Supinder Kour—the slain principal of a government school in Eidgah locality of the city —were performed on Friday amidst a protest by members of the Sikh community here.

The funeral was performed by the family and relatives at a cremation ground in Karan Nagar area here.

Hundreds of members of the community assembled at the residence of Kour in Aloochi Bagh area and took out a protest march from there, carrying her mortal remains on a stretcher.

The protesting members of the community covered the distance from Aloochi Bagh to Jehangir Chowk on foot, shouting slogans demanding justice for the victim shot dead by militants at the school along with her colleague Deepak Chand.

The police tried to persuade the protesters to stop their march, but to no avail.

They marched towards the Civil Secretariat, the seat of the Jammu and Kashmir government, and held a silent sit-in there.

The community members said the protest march and the sit-in was held to demand justice for Kour.

Later, the family members took Kour's mortal remains to the cremation ground where her last rites were held.

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https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/sgpc-expresses-concern-over-safety-of-sikhs-hindus-in-jk-101633721605469.html

 

SGPC expresses concern over safety of Sikhs, Hindus in J&K

Expressing condolences with the grieving families, SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur said the gurdwara body will approach the Centre to raise concerns of the community in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides, the SGPC delegation will also meet the Sikh leaders of J&K
  SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur said the gurdwara body will approach the Centre to raise concerns of the community in Jammu and Kashmir.
Published on Oct 09, 2021 01:03 AM IST
 

Condemning the killing of a teacher in a government school and its principal by militants in Srinagar on Thursday, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Friday expressed concern over the safety of Sikhs and Hindus in the Union Territory.

Satinder Kour , principal of Government Boys Higher Secondary school in Eidgah, and a teacher at the school, Deepak Chand, were shot dead on the school premises by militants. The Resistance Front (TRF), which police say is the front for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the attack and said the teachers were killed for their role in getting students to participate in a “function at school on August 15”.

Taking serious note of the killings, SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur said: “There is outrage among the Sikhs over the incident. The minority communities are not safe in the region. It is the responsibility of the Union government to ensure the safety of the Sikhs in every state of the country.

Expressing condolences with the grieving families, she said the SGPC will approach the Centre to raise concerns of the community in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides, the SGPC delegation will also meet the Sikh leaders of the state, she said.

State BJP condemns killings

Chandigarh: State BJP chief Ashwani Sharma on Friday said the brutal attack by terrorists in which two teachers were gunned down in Srinagar on Thursday due to their religious affiliation is most unfortunate.

In a statement, Sharma said the recent incident is orchestrated by Pakistan-sponsored terrorist group and is aimed to create an atmosphere of fear and division between different religions.

“The Hindus and Sikhs are being targeted. Terrorists lined up teachers and checked their identity cards and massacred a Sikh and a Hindu,” he said.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/10/after-killings-uneasy-calm-among-minorities-in-kashmir

Kashmiri Hindus, Sikhs reel from spate of deadly attacks

Some members of the Hindu community leave the region while Sikhs are terrified after a wave of attacks killed seven civilians.

Kashmir pandit killed
Muslim religious leaders have condemned the killings from mosques, asking people to take initiatives to make the minorities feel safe in the region [Danish Ismail/Reuters]
10 Oct 2021
 

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – A string of targeted killings of civilians this week in the Indian-administered Kashmir has caused a sense of fear among the minority communities, with many Hindus starting to leave the region.

A Sikh principal and her Hindu colleague were shot dead inside their school on the outskirts of Srinagar, the region’s main city, on Thursday in the third attack within a week. The attackers first checked the identity cards of the teachers and then isolated 46-year-old Sikh woman Supinder Kaur and a local Hindu teacher Deepak Chand before shooting them dead on the school premises, officials said.

A total of seven people have been killed in the recent spate of killings, blamed on the rebels fighting Indian rule.

Authorities have asked members of the Hindu community not to venture out of their homes. But that has failed to assuage their fears. Some of them have quietly left the region, bringing back memories of the 1990s, which saw the flight of the Hindu community.

Tens of thousands of people from the minority Hindu community were forced to leave mainly for the southern city of Jammu after some members of the community were targeted following the eruption of an armed rebellion in 1989.

But about 800 families had decided to stay back despite the precarious security situation. Among them was the family of *Rudresh Chaku, 23, a computer science graduate, from Srinagar.

The “recent attacks have brought back the memories of the 1990s,” Chaku, a member of the Hindu Pandit community, told Al Jazeera.

“I was not born in the early 1990s but today my parents are witnessing the flashback of those times and I am able to see closely how tough the times would have been,” Chaku.

The young computer graduate sees his future in Kashmir but says his parents are worried.

“They regret not migrating in the 1990s. If these things continue, we cannot stay here any more,” Chaku said, adding that for the past five days, the family has not stepped out of their home.

“Though my Muslim friends are calling all the time for any help and support me to make me feel safe, but the fear is still there,” he said.

 

Hundreds detained

Police have detained hundreds of people as they promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.

A police official on the conditions of anonymity said more than 300 people, mostly young men, have been detained in raids across the region. Most of these people have been involved in “stone pelting and violent protests” in the past, the official said.

AP21280318997674.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2CKashmir is one of the most militarised zones in the world [File: Dar Yasin/AP Photo]

Authorities have tried to reassure the minority community that the latest killings should not be seen through a communal prism, emphasising that out of the 28 civilians killed by rebels this year, 21 were local Muslims. The deadly attacks, the police said, are part of a larger pattern of civilian killings in the restive region, which has seen decades of deadly violence.

The latest attacks started with the killings of Majid Ahmad Gojri and Mohammad Shafi Dar of Srinagar’s old city. On Tuesday, rebels killed a prominent pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Hindu, at his shop in Srinagar. Later in the day, two more people were killed, including a Muslim taxi driver in the northern city of Bandipora.

The region’s police chief, Vijay Kumar, said in a statement soon after the killings: “We appeal to general public specially minority communities not to panic.”

Muslim religious leaders stand in solidarity

Muslim religious leaders in the region have condemned the killings from mosques, asking people to take initiatives to make the minorities feel safe in the region.

A senior pro-freedom leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, condemned the killings and said he is “deeply grieved”.

“We [Sikhs] have been part and parcel of this community for 500 years. We are not going anywhere,” Raina said.

“We have taken a decision at the community level to refrain women from attending their offices till a further decision is made,” he said.

But the Sikh leaders like Raina are conscious, too. He said the community would fight the elements that are trying to create a religious divide between Muslims and Sikhs over these incidents.

“We don’t have fear from Kashmiri common men but from those who are being used for these targeted killings,” Raina said.

Sikhs and Muslims in the region have generally shared cordial relations over the years despite the decades of turmoil.

‘Protect minorities’

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a global rights group, has demanded that the government must take measures to protect the minorities in Kashmir.

“The authorities should protect minorities in Kashmir and ensure justice for victims of security force abuses,” Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at HRW, said in a statement.

She said, “The Indian government’s failure to confront its own rights abuses feeds Kashmir’s brutal cycle of violence.”

Ganguly said this violence will not end “without justice for past and present abuses and respect for people’s rights and freedoms”.

kashmir-supinder-kaur-mourning.jpg?w=770Kashmiri women mourn the death of Supinder Kaur at her residence [Al Jazeera]

A rebel outfit, the Resistance Front (TRF), has claimed responsibility for the recent killings. The armed group is believed to be the offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which first surfaced in March last year.

The police had called it a local front of LeT “launched by Pakistan” immediately after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

Police sources have told Al Jazeera that rebels are taking advantage of a raging debate about the “changing demography” in the region generated by the changes in domicile and land laws.

 

“The terrorists are targeting minorities and Indian nationalists among Kashmiri Muslims including local BJP workers to spin a narrative about demographic change. In the last two years, around 23 BJP workers, mostly Muslims, have been killed by the terrorists,” an official said. “But these tactics will not succeed.”

 

 

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