Video Editor: Harpal Singh
(The Quint's documentary titled Uprooted: Stories of Kashmiri Pandits will be premiered on Wednesday, 15 June. If you like our content and want to support our work, kindly click here to sustain our special projects.)
"There will be another migration of Kashmiri Pandits because we are not safe in Kashmir," yelled a visibly enraged protester at one of the many agitations that have been breaking the carefully crafted silence on Kashmir.
The protesters are mainly Kashmiri Pandit migrants who've been given government jobs in the valley, but feel increasingly insecure in an atmosphere marked by targeted killings.
First Rahul Bhat and then Hindu school teacher Rajni Bala, and then a bank manager – at least eight people have been the subject of targeted attacks in recent weeks in Kashmir.
The list also includes a policeman, Saifullah Qadri, and social media star Ambreen Bhat. The killings, as one unnamed protester put it, means "that absolutely no one is safe in Kashmir."
The killings have also forced around 100 Kashmiri Pandits to flee Kashmir. While around 5,900 of them have been given jobs under the Prime Minister's employment package, less than one-fifth of them reside in secure accommodation.
The sum of all these issues – the overarching one being security – has led to demands that Kashmiri Pandits be posted to safer locations outside Kashmir where "they can live in peace."
The Quint's upcoming documentary focuses not only on the struggles of those left behind in the cramped quarters of Jammu, but also on those who returned to the valley – only to leave again.
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