KP Exodus - The Third Dimension
Recently, a providential coincidence upset the applecart of Kashmir's thriving land mafia-revenue officials' nexus to fraudulently sell a residential plot belonging to a Kashmiri Pandit (KP) family in Srinagar's upscale outskirts. While the JK Grievance Cell remains a ping-pong of bureaucratese, simple communication to the PMO did the trick this time. That the deal was almost 'done' by swapping revenue papers of a nearby plot, whether by artifice or in connivance, reveals how brazen and deep-rooted this nexus remains. Even after retrieving the land from their clutches, the revenue-cum- police sponsored mafia remains unrelenting to let go of the opportunity to grab KP property. The overarching separatist ideology of Muslim exclusivism continues to rule the social order in the Valley. Since the early 1990s, commerce in abandoned KP property worth lakhs of crores is a thriving activity. This trade has benefitted the entire Kashmiri society- separati...