The first thing that needs attention in the case of the killings of innocent civilians by terrorists, is this: No ifs and buts.
We shouldn’t be throwing explanations, of whatever nature, and water down the ghastly and criminal in this act of killing a Kashmir Pandit.
It is not the time to shower sympathies, or talk about the usual stuff, like communal harmony, traditional brotherhood etc. It is time to call it what it is. And that is, killing a human being.
An act of murder. An act of crime, that is ugly, reprehensible, and intolerable. Life of a Kashmiri Pandit is as valid and as authentic as is the life of anyone living on this planet.
Before categorising it as ‘Pandit killing’, we should call it the killing of a human being.
What does that mean? It means we should feel it like a member of our own family has been targeted and our own family is now in mourning.
If we feel it like that, we would intensely wish that all the factors leading to such killings should be eliminated, and no further loss of life should happen.
We should contribute to the safety of each one from the Kashmir Pandit community, in whatever way we can. No one with a human heart can just observe this ghastly event and remain undisturbed. If that is the case with anyone, he has lost his humanity.
In fact he is, in a way, falling in the proximity of the crime. After ensuring clarity on this matter, we should all, as a people, stand against those who perpetrate such crimes.
We shouldn’t just make a customary statement, disowning such acts, we must act in ways that we are seen to be on the side of the victim. We must raise our voice in favour of the safety of Kashmiri Pandits, and all the innocents, regardless of their communal belonging. We must also join the voices within the Kashmiri Pandit community who ask for punishing the culprits.
These events should be seen as an assault on the societal fabric of Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits are first and foremost humans; the markers of identity only come later.
As a concerned society we should stand with them to safeguard them as humans, and also ensure that all their collective and individual identities are not just respected, but protected.
Killing humans, and assaulting collective identities, is barbarism. Whosoever does it, and where ever in the world it is done, it’s terror.