Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha advised that the country stop viewing it from the lens of religion as people from other communities have also been killed in large numbers.
“It is true some Kashmiri Pandit became victims of targeted killings. But there is another side too… The country should stop seeing this issue on the basis of religion. A lot of other people have also been killed,” Sinha told The Indian Express at the Idea Exchange on Friday.
“There are also labourers who come from Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand during the apple season… There were two-three incidents, but a (false) narrative is spread,” he added.
His comments come in the backdrop of targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. Since 2020, at least seven Kashmiri Pandits were reported to have been killed in the Valley.
The Kashmiri Pandits have been protesting in Jammu for the past few months demanding the relocation of Kashmiri Pandits government employees from Kashmir to Jammu. The protest started following the killing of revenue clerk Rahul Bhat at the Chadoora tehsil office in Budgam on May 12.