New Delhi: Days after the 22 April Pahalgam terror attack, 26-year-old Mohammad Iqbal stepped onto Mussoorie’s Mall Road to sell shawls, as he has done for nearly a decade. Moments later, a mob surrounded him and another Kashmiri vendor, hurling abuses at them, repeatedly slapping them, and calling them “outsiders”.
At midnight the same day, Mussoorie police reached the door of the Kashmiri vendors and asked them to return home for “the time” to ensure their safety, Iqbal tells ThePrint. Hours later, at least 15 vendors, who travelled over 700 km to reach Mussoorie for some earnings, booked tickets for their return to Kashmir. Scared for their lives, they left the Uttarakhand hub in the pitch dark of the night.
Following the 24 April incident, the vendors left piles of Kashmiri shawls and pherans worth at least Rs 20 lakh behind in their hurry to leave Mussoorie. Whether or not they will be able to return to Mussoorie to restart their businesses remains to be seen.
This incident is not isolated. Since the Pahalgam terror attack, Kashmiris working and studying on the mainland have been facing violence, with people asking them to return home for “safety”.
To ensure the safety of J&K residents, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has deputed his cabinet ministers to different cities in the country. He, in a statement on the official X account of the Chief Minister’s Office, stressed the unwavering support of the UT government he heads for Kashmiris, no matter where they are staying now.
“With a view to instilling a sense of security among our students and businessmen currently in other states, I have deputed my Cabinet Ministers to various cities across the country. The purpose of these visits is to coordinate efforts with the respective State Governments and ensure the safety and well-being of J&K residents. The J&K Government will stand with its people—anywhere, everywhere,” Omar’s post reads.
Since the video of his harassment in Mussoorie went viral, Iqbal, now back in his village in Drugmulla, Kupwara, has been getting nervous calls from his family and friends.
“I have been selling shawls in Mussoorie for nine years now. Nothing like this has ever happened before. After the Pahalgam terror attack, we had been expecting some violence. But why us?” Iqbal asks.
Iqbal says the incident has left him worried about the future of Kashmiri workers across India and Kashmiri women settled outside the Union Territory. “They are targeting Kashmiris. If we are not safe in India, where should we go?” asks Iqbal, the sole breadwinner of his family.
“They checked my ID card, and one of them said I did not belong. Then, they beat me up and abused me. That is when I realised my life has no value,” rues Iqbal, now waiting for the Mussoorie police’s order to return to the city to resume work in a safer environment.
The police have arrested three men in the case.
Krishan Kumar Singh, a senior sub-Inspector in Kotwali, Dehradun, tells ThePrint that soon after the video went viral, police arrested three of the harassers but later released them after issuing them challans under the Police Act (1861) for nuisance. After the police “reprimanded them”, the senior SI says, “they apologised for their actions”.
Also Read: Pahalgam doesn’t have a hospital, just a PHC. Terror attack victims had to be ferried 40 kilometres
A day of darkness
Javaid Ahmed, another shawl vendor from Kupwara, was among the 16 vendors who returned home on 24 April.
Ahmed got to know about the incident only when the police knocked at the door of the harassed Kashmiri vendors and asked him to return home with them. The police told the harassed vendors the “situation was worsening because of them”, Javaid Ahmed recalls.
According to Ahmed, beaten and abused, the two men felt “extreme humiliation” and decided to restrain themselves from narrating the incident to anyone. However, an unknown person shared the video on social media, and soon, everyone was watching and knew. The 16 Kashmiri men then came together and left the city.
“We did not want the video to go viral since we want to return to Mussoorie and start working again,” Javaid Ahmed says.
Ahmed has, since 2014, been working in Mussoorie. He roamed the streets and sold shawls from a roadside stall on Mall Road. “We used to earn Rs 500 to 1,000 daily, depending on the rush of tourists. But, we were thankful,” he says, adding that he learnt to work outside Kashmir from his father, who had also been selling shawls in Mussoorie for years.
“People from different parts of India come to Kashmir for daily wage work. We have never stopped them from working there. You will not hear a single threat or incident of such similar violence happening against them in Kashmir,” he adds.
Ahmed says that post-Pahalgam, Kashmiris are trying to take precautionary measures and stay inside their rooms for the next few days, but most of them hail from families living in poverty. Selling shawls is their only source of income.
“These two (harassed Kashmiris) did not even have food to eat, which forced them to go out and try and make some money,” Javaid Ahmed says. He adds that his group came across a video of a man asking others to find and target Kashmiris.
Campaign to instil fear
Riyaz Habib, a 46-year-old Kashmiri shawl vendor, was also asked by the police to leave Mussoorie and return in “better conditions”. “They told us that our lives are in danger, and it is better to leave and save ourselves,” he tells ThePrint.
With his vending coming to a sudden halt, Habib has a huge debt to pay for the shawls he had stocked up to sell in Mussoorie. “We had been working in Mussoorie for so long that all the locals knew us. We had good relations with them. But nobody came forward to help us when the incident happened,” he rues.
Habib, whose family of eight depends entirely on his earnings, tells ThePrint that he, like the other vendors, has not paid for the stocked shawls now locked up in their rooms in Mussoorie. “We have never harmed anyone there, or anywhere. What happened is unfortunate,” he says.
Nasir Kheuhami, the J&K Students Association’s national convener, tells ThePrint that over the past week, more than 17 cases of harassment, intimidation, and physical assault have happened across various states in northern India. From Mussoorie and Dehradun in Uttarakhand to Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Jammu, Delhi, Nagpur, and Mumbai’s outskirts, “fringe elements have unleashed a reign of fear and terror”.
“These are not isolated incidents; they reflect a disturbing pattern targeting Kashmiri students, workers, and vendors through provocative slogans, threats, and ultimatums to leave. The atmosphere now is charged, full of anxieties, and a dangerous pattern of othering is festering unchecked,” he says.
Kheuhami says that back in 2019, the backlash that followed the Pulwama attack also came with several physical assaults, but the climate of fear was less “pervasive”. Today, he adds, even as the number of incidents may be fewer, “the hate has evolved.” It is now “structured, deliberate, and digitally amplified.”
“This appears to be part of an orchestrated campaign to instil fear in a vulnerable community and suppress them,” he highlights.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Kashmiris are our brothers and sister. The police should take strict action against the perpetrators of such bigoted activities. The Uttaranchal government is responsible for the wellbeing of every resident irrespective of their faith. Using excuses such as secrity and law and order merely hides their partisan behaviour.
Of course you don’t belong. Without the active involvement of local Kashmiris (like Ms. Zenaira Bakhsh), the Pahalgam terror attack could not have happened. The locals are involved in this attack.
Of course you don’t belong. Neither does Ms. Zenaira Bakhsh.
This is unbelievable!! Instead of protecting innocent small businesses, the police are asking them to leave!!
But they wont arrest people who harassed these vendors. Looks like only because they are Kashmiri.
Topsy-tuvy logic.
Always a victim! What about thousand including Kashmiri pandits harassed, killed and pushed out of Kashmir by Kashmiris swayed by Islamist ideology? The patience of Hindus is not unlimited. The author of the article deliberately exaggerated stray cases of intimidation. If India continues to be peaceful despite provocative actions in the name of Islam by Pakistan-backed terrorists in Kashmir and home-grown terrorists in Murshidabad, it is thanks to Hindus.