(The Quint has consistently been the leading news organisation breaking stories on communal violence and hate crimes, and carrying out in-depth investigations on communal issues. We need your support as we continue to bring out more such investigations and voices from the ground.)
When Anzal*, a 25-year-old journalist working with a leading newsroom, walked into work the morning after the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort, the energy in the office felt different. Conversations stopped when he entered. Later, as colleagues huddled over tea, he heard the whispers — not directed at him, but loud enough to wound.
“Yeh Kashmiri aisa kyun karte hain?” (Why do Kashmiris do this?)
“In logon ko itni problem kyon hoti hai?” (What's their problem?)
He didn’t respond. He says silence felt like the only safe choice. “I had nothing to do with any of it, but suddenly my presence became political. I wasn’t a colleague anymore, I was the Kashmiri in the room,” Anzal recalls.
He avoided the newsroom cafeteria that day. By evening, he’d switched off his phone. His experience captures the subtler side of discrimination: the awkward pauses, the invisible walls, the isolation that arrives disguised as civility.
The recent explosion sent shockwaves far beyond its physical reach. Within hours, the city’s newsrooms, WhatsApp groups, and social media feeds were thick with speculation. Some television channels began discussing “Kashmir connections”, even as investigators had yet to establish any link.
For many Kashmiri Muslims in Delhi, it was a familiar dread returning — one that surfaces after every act of terror, each time forcing them to defend their identity, their loyalties, and their right to belong.
'Can't Return to Own Home in Gurugram'
After the blast, the Gurugram Police issued an order directing housing societies, PGs, guest houses, and landlords to submit detailed lists of all tenants along with ID proofs. The order, issued under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, specifically asked for separate lists of residents from Jammu & Kashmir and foreign nationals, citing heightened security.
While authorities described it as a routine verification drive ahead of New Year and Republic Day, the messaging behind the focused scrutiny of Kashmiris was clear.
In Govindpuri, Musa*, who works as an IT professional, has been spending sleepless nights checking the news and calling relatives. His aunt’s family, who live in Gurugram, had travelled to Kashmir for a wedding just before the Red Fort blast. But following reports of the Gurugram Police’s diktat, panic set in.
“They were supposed to return last week,” Musa said, “but after hearing about the order, they decided to stay back in Srinagar until things calmed down.”
He added that this isn’t the first time fear has dictated their movements — after the Pahalgam attack earlier this year, the family had cancelled a planned visit to Delhi, afraid of being targeted during heightened tensions.
“I told them to stay back in Kashmir till things calm down,” Musa says. “They have their own house in Gurugram, yet they’re scared to go home,” he said.
“When authorities start profiling us like this, what are we supposed to feel — safe, or warned?” he added.
'Don't Assert Your Identity'
Across the city, Farhan*, a 23-year-old master’s student at Jamia Millia Islamia, has barely stepped out of his rented flat since the attack. “I go out only if I really have to — groceries, maybe an ATM run. After sunset, never,” he said.
The fear isn’t new for him. Earlier this year, after the Pahalgam attack in Kashmir, Farhan was stopped by police at the New Friends Colony community centre. They asked him what he “really felt” about the attack. His student ID was seized for hours.
“It felt like an interrogation for being Kashmiri,” he said quietly. “Now, I’d rather skip class than go through that humiliation again.”
For Kehkashan*, a 19-year-old law student, the discrimination runs in stares and snide remarks. “I’ve always been vocal about my identity,” she said. “But after every attack, that becomes dangerous.”
This time, her classmates cornered her between lectures, asking if “people back home” supported the blast. She smiled it off, but her sister’s warning echoed in her head: wear a bindi, look like them, stay safe.
“She told me after the Pahalgam incident, if you blend in, you won’t be noticed. Imagine, a law student who can’t even assert her identity without fear,” she said, half laughing, half resigned.
'Families Worried Back Home'
Beyond Delhi’s campuses and newsrooms, the dread has reached Kashmiri families scattered across the city.
Firdaus*, who stays in the capital while her parents live in Srinagar, said her father’s calls have doubled since the Red Fort blast. “He asks the same thing every time — are you safe, are you keeping calm, are you carrying your ID?” she says. “We do not talk in sentences but in phrases.” The recurring phrase is a question about haalaat.
“Haalaat cha thikh?” (How is the situation?)
Her father was supposed to travel to Delhi with her ailing mother for a medical appointment, but he postponed the trip. “He feels more caged than us. He’s scared someone might question him at the airport, or worse,” Firdaus said.
“Every time something happens, we go through this cycle. The system’s failures are blamed on us. It’s easier that way,” she said, exhausted and worried. She believes the reaction to every attack follows the same script: outrage, investigation, and then the quiet blaming of a community already on edge.
“We are easy targets,” she said. “It’s simpler to question Kashmiris than to question the system.”
For Rumi*, a 21-year-old undergraduate student from Jammu now living in South Delhi, the anxiety carries the echo of previous “self-imposed lockdowns”.
“The last time there was an attack, my family’s phones were confiscated. The network was cut off. I couldn’t reach them for days,” he recalls.
This week, when he saw “Breaking News” flash again, his body remembered that panic. “I kept refreshing my messages, waiting to hear from them. I don’t think anyone outside Kashmir knows what it feels like to live with that silence,” he said.
He’s tired of constantly proving his loyalty, his grief, his innocence, he said, adding: “It breaks something inside you.”
“We’re Not Asking for Sympathy — Just Normalcy”
In Delhi, the prejudice against them, many said, plays out in subtle but suffocating ways — a landlord asking too many questions, a friend growing distant, a professor skipping your raised hand in class.
While the investigation into the Red Fort blast remains open, its social consequences for Kashmiris are already visible — in the lowered voices, the hesitant glances, the calls home that last a little longer than usual.
Civil rights groups point out that the state’s heavy-handed security measures and the media’s framing of Kashmir often blur the line between counterterrorism and communal profiling.
Anzal* said that even journalists from Kashmir must now self-censor. “You can’t pitch certain stories. You can’t use certain words. Even empathy feels like a risk,” he said. “But silence isn’t safety either — it’s just another form of loss.”
Firdaus* still takes the Metro to work but keeps her ID ready. Kehkashan attends lectures, though her voice trembles when she speaks up in class. Farhan checks the news more than he sleeps. And Rumi, every night, calls home — just to hear someone pick up.
“After every attack, we know what’s coming,” Anzal said, exhaling. “It’s like we’re sentenced before the trial even begins.”