NEW DELHI (Kashmir English): Following last week’s deadly attack in Pahalgam in Indian occupied Kashmir that killed 26 tourists, many Kashmiris in Indian cities faced harassment, vilification, and threats from right-wing groups.
BBC reported that since the attack, more than a dozen reports of Kashmiri vendors and students in Indian cities facing harassment from their own classmates, customers, and neighbours.
Videos showing students being chased off campus and beaten up on the streets have been cascading online.
Shabir Ahmad Dar and another salesman, hailing from IIOJK, were assaulted by members of a Hindu right-wing group in Uttarakhand’s Mussoorie hill station last week, BBC News reported.
In a viral video on social media, the assailants can be seen accusing the men of being responsible for terrorism and vandalizing their stall, and ordering them to leave town.
For over two decades, Dar made a living selling embroidered Pashmina shawls in this town. But his Kashmiri identity has now made him a target, the UK-based publication said.
“They told us we didn’t belong here,” Dar said from his home in India-held Kashmir, where he returned out of fear. “We left everything behind — even goods worth thousands of dollars. We’re too scared to go back.”
The backlash reflects a growing pattern of harassment targeting Kashmiris across India following the attack in Pahalgam.
Ummat Shabir, a nursing student in Punjab state, said her neighbour called her a “terrorist who should be thrown out”.
“My classmate was thrown out of a taxi after the driver found out she was Kashmiri,” she said. The two returned to India-held Kashmir after a three-day journey, fearing for their safety.
Even in Mussoorie, where Dar and his colleague Shafi Subhan had worked peacefully for decades, the atmosphere has changed.
“After the Pulwama attack in 2019, there was tension, but no one touched us,” said Subhan, who has sold shawls in the town for 20 years. “This time, no one stepped in to help us. People just watched. It hurt us physically, but emotionally, a lot more.”
