Letters threatening Kashmiri Pandits that surfaced on social media in August have set off a wave of panic among members of the community living in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). They have revived memories of the “hit lists” and assassinations that forced around 350,000 Pandits to flee the Kashmir valley over 36 years ago.

Three letters, all issued in the name of the United Liberation Council (ULC), said to be a front organization of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, have surfaced on social media so far. The most recent letter, dated August 27, was explicitly linked to the Indian government reopening investigations into the massacre of Pandits by Islamist militants at the height of the anti-India militancy in the 1990s.

“If the SIA [State Investigation Agency of J&K] or any other agency is so eager to reopen closed cases involving migrant Pandits, they should also investigate cases like Bijebehara, Gawkadal, Sopore, Handwara, etc., where the so-called Indian mercenary security forces deliberately opened fire on innocent Kashmiris,” the letter said. “We will slaughter all those involved in these crimes no matter how much security they have.”

The first letter, dated August 7, named six Pandits working in the J&K government’s revenue department and included their cell phone numbers. It called on them to “change their ways.” The second letter, dated August 23, named six more Pandits and provided their residential addresses, including house numbers and street names. It described them as “white collar terrorists” and “traitors,” working for their “masters” in Delhi.

The letter’s contents were ominous. “Wherever you are and wherever you go, we are watching your every move,” it said. While the August 7 letter named Pandits working in the valley, the August 23 post listed Pandits in Jammu.

Kashmiri Pandits are Hindus and indigenous to the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. At the start of the militancy in 1989-1990, several Pandits, including Tika Lal Taploo, Neelkanth Ganjoo, Sarwanand Koul Premi and Virender Koul were assassinated. Sarla Bhat, a nurse, was abducted, raped and killed. Although militants claimed they were killed for their links to the Indian state – Taploo was a politician and Ganjoo was a high court judge—amid the rising tide of Islamism in Kashmir, it caused immense fear among the Pandits.

In an article I wrote for The Diplomat in 2020, I recounted what Ashok Dhar, a Pandit previously living in Baramulla in the valley, told me about what happened in 1989-90. “It was evident that Kashmiri Muslims wanted us to leave the Valley,” he recalled. Militant groups like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and the Hizbul Mujahideen brought out “hit lists” with names of Pandits to be eliminated. People shouted anti-Pandit slogans in mosques and at rallies. “They wanted sharia rule in Kashmir,” Dhar said, adding that Pandits were given a choice to convert to Islam or leave the valley.

Around 70,000 Pandit families comprising over 350,000 women, men, and children fled the valley in 1990. Dhar and his family were among them.

Most of the Pandits who left the Kashmir valley were subsequently housed in migrant camps in Jammu and Delhi. Many settled in other Indian cities. Most of them have never returned home. A few hundred families remained in the valley.

In its letters, the JLC has distinguished between those who remained in the valley and those who left. It is the latter that it is targeting now, the letters say.

While for most part, Pandits in the valley were left unharmed over the decades, Islamist militants have targeted the community periodically. The Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen massacred 23 Pandits, including four children, at Wandhama in 1997 and another 24 Pandits, including two children, at Nadimarg in 2003.

Memories of the terror they experienced remain deeply etched in the memory of Pandits.

Soon after the second letter emerged, Dhar, who now lives in Bengaluru, spoke to The Diplomat. The JLC’s lists providing names and other identifying details of Pandits “are no different from the hit lists of 1990,” he said.

Since 2008, when former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a rehabilitation package, New Delhi has promised government jobs, cash doles, accommodation and security to Pandits returning to the valley. Yet this has not been enough to convince them to return in large numbers.

Continuing attacks on Pandits in the valley – in October 2021, for example, a pharmacist who stayed back in Srinagar, J&K’s capital, in 1990, was shot dead – have kept the community on tenterhooks. The government may have provided returning Pandits with tight security but since they live in clusters, they fear they are sitting ducks for Islamist militants.

In recent months, New Delhi has reopened investigations into several high-profile murders and massacres by militant groups in Kashmir. Among the cases that have been reopened are the rape and murder of Sarla Bhat, and the massacre at Wandhama.

These investigations could serve to meet the demands of Kashmiri Pandit organizations that have been demanding justice. But also, they will reopen old wounds.

Meanwhile, this is sure to prompt Kashmiri Muslims to demand justice in incidents of mass killings by the Indian security forces. The ULC referred to this in its third letter. “It appears to be positioning itself as a guardian of Kashmiri Muslim interests. But Kashmiris, “even the Muslims, are unlikely to be impressed as they have suffered for decades, even as the militant groups operated from the safety of camps in Pakistan,” Dhar said.

When two non-Kashmiri Indian laborers working at a brick kiln in Kulgam district in the valley were shot dead on July 31, analysts pointed out that militants were hitting “soft targets” as they were not strong enough to take on India’s security forces. The targeting of Pandit civilians is yet another example of militants seeking to assert their presence by intimidating unarmed people.

Should the letters prompt Pandits to leave again, it will deal a blow to New Delhi’s efforts to normalize the situation in J&K.