by Girija Tickoo was an Indian Kashmiri librarian. She was also the victim of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990. She was gang-raped and brutally murdered by the terrorist.
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Life of Girija Tickoo
Girija Tickoo was born in a Hindu pandit family on 15 February 1969 at Arigam, Bandipora, Kashmir. Her nickname was Babli. She started work as a librarian at a university in Kashmir. Girija Tickoo worked there till they run from Kashmir to Jammu in 1990 for the safety of the family.
Kashmiri pandit genocide in 1990
Girija Tickoo was also one of the victims of that genocide. 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits, constituting 99% of the total population of Hindus living in the Muslim majority area of the Kashmir Valley, were forcibly pushed out of the Valley by Muslim terrorists, trained in Pakistan, at the end of 1989.
They have been forced to live the life of exiles in their own country, outside their homeland, by unleashing a systematic campaign of terror, murder, loot, and arson.
The genocide of Kashmiri Pandits has reached its climax with Muslim terrorism succeeding in ‘CLEANSING’ the valley of this ancient ethnoreligious community. With the completion of the fifth year of their forced exile, this peace-loving, culturally rich community with a history of more than 5000 years, is fighting a grim battle to save itself from becoming extinct as a distinct race and culture.
Role of Pakistan in genocide
Terrorism in Kashmir is an ideological struggle with specified political commitments which are fundamentalist and communal in character. Terrorist violence is aimed at achieving the disengagement of the state of Jammu and Kashmir from India and its annexation to Pakistan.
It is the continuation of the Islamic fundamentalist struggle for the homeland of Pakistan which claims the Jammu and Kashmir state on account of its Muslim majority character.
The major dimension of the terrorist violence in Kashmir is the terrorists’ commitment to the extermination and subjugation of the Hindus in the state because Hindus do not subscribe to the idea of separation from India, nor do they expect to be governed by the authority of the state which derives its sanction from the law and precedent of Islam.
Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) have always been at the forefront of the struggle against secessionism, communalism, and fundamentalism. Hence this peace-loving minority with a modern outlook became the main victim of terrorist violence.
Strategies in the terrorist operation
- The extermination of Hindus
- Subjecting Hindus to brutal torture to instill fear among them in order to achieve their submission.
- To engineer a forced mass exodus of Hindus from the land of their ancestors and birth by way of issuing threatening letters, kidnappings, and torture deaths on non-compliance of the terrorists’ dictates and ensure the destruction of the secular and pluralistic character of the socio-political fabric of the Kashmiri Society.
- Attacks, molestations, kidnappings, and gang rapes of the women folk of the Hindus in order to instill fear and humiliation in them.
- Destruction and burning of the residential houses of the Hindus who leave their homes in look out for safety. Looting of their properties and appropriation of their business establishments to ensure that they do not return.
- Attachment of their landed property.
- Destruction of the social base of the Hindus by the desecration and destruction of their places of worship.
- Appropriation of the property of the Hindu shrines and its attachment to Muslim religious endowments.
The case of Girija
Girija Tickoo was a Kashmiri Hindu from Bandipora. She worked as a laboratory assistant at a university in Kashmir Valley. In the aftermath of the ‘Azadi Movement’ by the terrorists of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front headed by Yasin Malik, Tickoo had fled with her family and settled in Jammu.
One day, she received a call from someone who claimed the situation was better in the valley and she could come back to collect her salary. She was assured of safety, and the person alleged the area was safe to travel to.
In June 1990, Girija came to the valley to collect her salary and met her local Muslim colleague at her home. She was not aware that Jihadi terrorists were tracking her movement. Girija was kidnapped from her colleague’s home and was taken to an unknown location. Everyone, including her colleague and people in the locality, watched her being taken silently.
After a few days after the kidnapping, her dead body was found on the roadside in horrible condition. The autopsy revealed she was brutally gang-raped and horribly tortured. Girija was cut into two pieces using a mechanical saw while she was still alive, right from the middle of her body.
Justice to her
Her family still awaits justice, just like the hundreds and thousands of other Kashmiri Pandits whose suffering has been deemed as ‘propaganda’ by the ‘liberal’ section of the media and society.
