SRINAGAR: Kashmiri Pandit and all other non-Muslim government employees in J&K have been given 10 consecutive days of official leave from Friday as part of the administration’s attempt to assuage their fears in the wake of selective terror attacks targeting minority communities, a top government official said on Saturday. The stretch of leave coincides with the Hindu festive season, starting with Navratri.
“The grant of 10 days’ holiday to non-Muslim government employees working in Kashmir was done to enable them to celebrate the coming festivals, besides getting them out of the fear mindset in the wake of the fresh attacks on some their community members during the last few days,” the official said.
Sources said the holiday leave was initially meant for Kashmiri Pandit employees, but the administration extended it to all non-Muslim staff after the local Sikh community demanded the same privilege.
The announcement came a day after terrorists killed a Kashmiri Sikh school principal and her Kashmiri Pandit colleague after checking their identity cards within a government-run boys’ higher secondary institute’s campus in Srinagar’s Eidgah locality on Thursday. Two days before that, Pakistan-backed outfit TRF had killed a prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman and a food vendor from Bihar in Srinagar.
Amid reports of minorities fleeing J&K after the killings, the United Sikh Forum (USF) on Saturday issued a statement saying that no Kashmiri Sikh would leave the Valley out of fear. It appealed to all communities to be united at the time of crisis.