When Islamic terrorists massacred more than 35 Kashmiri Sikhs in 2000

In March 2000, another barbaric act of terror took place in Sikh-dominated Chattisinghpura village in south Kashmir's Anantnag district by the Islamic terrorists. This happened hours before the then-American President Bill Clinton’s India visit. This was yet another horrifying terror that claimed countless innocent lives after the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990.

 

A group of masked gunmen in army fatigues barged into the village in military vehicles. They were then split into two groups and rounded up 36 Sikhs, including teenagers, the young and the elderly. They were at the separate ends of the village where the two gurdwaras were located, while the villagers had been celebrating the Hola Mahalla festival.

 

 

The Sikhs were confused as to what was happening. They asked the perpetrators who wore army uniform what happened. The terrorists said that they wanted to check their IDs. They approached two Gurudwaras - Shaukeen Mohalla Gurdwara and Singh Sabha Sumandri Hall Gurdwara and made two groups of Sikhs stand outside the gurdwaras in the area located just 150 metres apart. They ordered them to line up in front of the two gurdwaras and opened fire, killing more than 35 people.

 

 

This massacre which was slightly similar to Kashmiri Pandit genocide was a turning point in the Kashmir history where Sikhs had usually been spared from militant violence. After the massacre, hundreds of Kashmiri Sikhs gathered in Jammu shouting anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim slogans, criticizing the Indian government for failing to protect the villagers, and demanding retaliation. It should be noted that the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah.

 

 

 

Later, Indian authorities announced that Mohammad Suhail Malik, a nephew of Lashkar-e-Taiba co-founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, confessed while in Indian custody to participating in the attacks at the direction of Lashkar-e-Taiba. He repeated the claim in an interview with Barry Bearak of The New York Times while still in Indian custody, although Bearak questioned the authenticity of the confession.[18] In 2011, a Delhi court cleared Malik of the charges.

 

Further, in 2010, the Lashkar-e-Taiba associate David Headley, who was arrested in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reportedly told the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that the LeT carried out the Chaittisinghpura massacre. He is said to have identified a LeT militant named Muzzamil as part of the group which carried out the killings apparently to create communal tension just before Clinton's visit.

 

 

 

The government also repeatedly claimed that the targeted killing was carried out by Islamic militant groups Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, like the other massacres in Jammu and Kashmir that have been happening for years. Five days later, the Indian army and Jammu and Kashmir police had killed the terrorists allegedly involved in the massacre. There were claims that the government has not done a thorough investigation. The CBI had filed a charge sheet alleging that the persons killed in Pathribal were local Kashmiris and not Pakistani terrorists.

 

There are many aspects of massacres that need to be investigated.