New Delhi: A Kashmiri Pandit woman’s social media announcement that she has converted to Islam, changed her name, and married a Muslim man, is threatening the fragile peace between the two communities in Pulwama and the rest of the Valley.
Now, Kashmiri Pandits are rallying behind her parents, who have posted a video online claiming she was “lured” and “brainwashed”, and are asking religious leaders to intervene.
“If there is Kashmiriyat, where is it?” said the woman’s father in the video.
It all began on 23 July, when Niha Raina from Pulwama, who is now Fatima Mir, posted a 17-second video on Facebook announcing her conversion to Islam. With her head covered in a dupatta, she said the decision was entirely her own.
“I had always liked this [Islam] religion. I was never forced to convert,” Fatima said in the clip. After her parents’ public appeal, she posted another video on Facebook, saying she is happily married to her Muslim boyfriend and goes by her new name, Fatima Mir. She reminded viewers that she is an adult who can make her own decisions.
The incident has reignited long-standing communal anxieties in the Valley, with members of the minority Kashmiri Pandit community demanding the introduction of an anti-conversion law. For the older generation, it is a reminder of the 1960s, when one Parmeshwari Handoo married her co-worker Ghulam Rasool Kanth. At the time, it sparked massive protests by the Pandit community.
Now, rumblings of discontent are taking root again, magnified by social media posts. This love story can potentially change the fraught dynamics between Kashmiri Pandit and Muslim communities, said a senior politician who did not want to be named.
“It’s a very sensitive matter. We are trying our best to see what can be done so that the minorities don’t feel hurt,” said Waheed Para, Pulwama MLA.
Within the Kashmiri Pandit community, the woman has a small section of reluctant supporters who agree that she is free to make her own decisions, but are unhappy that she has converted. For the most part, however, members are knocking on the doors of local politicians and police.
“We are requesting the government and authorities to bring in an anti-conversion bill,” said Ashwani Sadhu, a 43-year-old businessman based in Chandigarh.
“A section of Kashmiri Pandits stayed back in Kashmir 35 years ago. Why? So that their daughters would grow up and get converted? This incident has triggered a real sense of threat to our community,” said Sadhu.
In 2021, a Sikh girl converted to Islam and married a Muslim man. It became a flashpoint in the Valley, with the Sikh community forcefully bringing her back as she was a minor. She was forced to marry a Sikh man, but ultimately eloped with her Muslim lover.
“Part of the anxiety is about the majority and minority in a democracy. The women are seen as someone who will carry their progeny, while the larger anxiety is that if women keep converting, Hindus will become a minority,” said a senior sociologist at a university in Delhi.
‘I am 30, can make own decisions’
Fatima Mir and Sajad Mir lived in Looswani village in Pahalgam. Sajad was Fatima (Niha)’s neighbour. According to a police official, the two had been in a relationship for over seven years. When news of their marriage broke two weeks ago, the Kashmiri Pandit community mobilised.
A group with over two dozen Kashmiri Pandits was formed with a single agenda: to bring ‘Niha’ back.
They met the woman’s family members and are now preparing to launch protests across Jammu and Kashmir.
“For us, this is a case of love jihad,” said Ashwani Sadhu, who is leading the campaign. “We spoke to the family. They told us Mir would often visit their home and called Niha his sister. It never crossed their minds that the two were in a relationship.”
Sadhu alleged that Mir was already married and that Niha is his second wife. “They didn’t have a legitimate marriage—only under Islamic law, for which the girl had to convert first. How can this be a conversion of her own will?” he said.
Fatima and Sajad have approached the district court for protection and are currently staying at a shelter home in Kashmir. According to Sadhu, the police are not allowing the woman’s family to meet her, and the matter has reached the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
“We will do whatever it takes,” said another Kashmiri Pandit from the group. “We will bring our girl back.”
Hours after her parents’ video surfaced online, Fatima uploaded a second, longer video from a new Facebook account.
“Why is everyone reacting in a manner as if we have committed a crime? Please let us stay alive,” she said in the video. “I’m 30 years old, not a minor. I have the right to make my own decisions. We’ve been married for three months. My parents never had an issue—until now. I am happily married to Sajad Ahmad Mir, and I am his wife, Fatima Mir.”
The video of the family members pleading for justice has been widely shared by the Pandit community members on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
“Just imagine for a moment. If the numbers flip, 80 percent Muslims and 20 percent Hindus. Will your ‘Secular India’ still exist?” read a comment under the video.
But the matter doesn’t end there. The incident has prompted Sadhu and others to begin monitoring other Kashmiri Pandit women living in and outside Kashmir.
“Right now, we have information about at least half a dozen Kashmiri Pandit women who are in relationships with Muslim men,” he said. “We can’t let this happen.”
Also read: Kashmiri Pandits are reviving old hometown temples. ‘It’s how we will return’
‘She’s being pressured’
There is a palpable tension in South Kashmir, especially in Looswani village. Everyone has seen the video. And there are murmurs.
“This is an unfortunate incident, and it has the potential to fan animosity between the communities. Pandits are already in the minority. We can’t even go and sympathise with them. Such is the situation right now,” said a Kashmiri Muslim resident of Pulwama, who wished to remain anonymous
The video features Fatima’s mother, Pinky Raina, weeping and appealing to the authorities—including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and religious leader Umar Farooq—to help bring her daughter back.
“I am a mother of three daughters. My daughter is innocent and young. I don’t know what has been done to her,” she said, her head covered with a pink-and-yellow dupatta. “I know she has definitely been pressured. We are helpless. Please do justice to us.”
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)