Cops Said I'm Next Target: Kashmiri Pandit Leader On Attacks On Civilians

"The question is that 808 Pandit families are living in 272 villages in Kashmir. They don't have any security. The killing of Pandits is serving the political agenda of some parties," said Sanjay Tikoo, President Kashmiri Pandit Sangrash Simriti.

A Kashmiri Pandit leader who has been fighting for rights of Pandits in the Valley says he is facing threat for the first time in last 30 years and the police have kept him in a security enclosure for the last five days.

"I was told that I'm the next target. Why I'm a target I don't know. I have not done anything wrong… I have never been scared in the last 30 years. But today I'm not able to live with my family. I don't know how serious the threat is. The police told me that I'll be targeted," said Sanjay Tikoo, President Kashmiri Pandit Sangrash Simriti.

According to him, the killing of pharmacist ML Bindroo was the first attack on non-migrant Pandits in the last 18 years. Seventy-year-old Makhan Lal Bindroo, a prominent businessman and the owner of Bindroo Medicate pharmacy in Srinagar's Iqbal Park, was shot at from point-blank range inside his pharmacy around 7 pm on October 5. Mr Bindroo had remained in Kashmir and ran his pharmacy even at the peak of terrorism in the 1990s.

Two others -- a street food vendor and a cab driver -- were also gunned down the same day. All three attacks took place in the span of one hour.