In Kashmir, families of those killed by security forces question LG’s compensation drive

In the last two months, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has handed out jobs to several families from Kashmir whose relatives were killed by militants.

On August 5, he presided over a large event in Srinagar in which he distributed appointment letters to the next of kin of 158 men and women killed by militants. Some of the deaths took place years ago, at the peak of Kashmir’s militancy. This included civilians killed because the militants accused them of being informers, or those working for the police.

Sinha is doing what many before him, including elected chief ministers and former governors, have already done – using a 1994 policy to give jobs on compassionate grounds to the next of kin of those civilians and government employees who were killed in “militancy-related action”.

But several families say the LG administration appears to have ignored one set of victims – those killed by security forces.

“This initiative feels discriminatory,” said Bilal Ahmed Bhat, the son of Mohammad Ramzan Bhat, a shopkeeper who was allegedly tortured and killed by security forces in 1996. “This healing is only for victims of militant violence while those killed by the state are not acknowledged as victims.”

A senior journalist in Kashmir, who asked not...

Read more