(Kashmir Rechords Exclusive)
The year was 1987. Kashmir was simmering. The scars of the Anantnag riots of 1986 — when shrines and temples of Kashmiri Pandits were vandalized — were still fresh. The State’s law and order machinery was in disarray, shaken further by the controversial closure of the Darbar Move in October that year. Amid this charged atmosphere, the small, vulnerable community of Kashmiri Pandits once again found itself caught in the crossfire of growing communal overtones.
And then, one day in November, tragedy struck — quietly, cruelly and almost unnoticed.
A young man, only 25, was murdered in broad daylight in an old Srinagar locality.
But who was this youth? And why does almost no one remember him today?
Kashmir Rechords recently unearthed a forgotten newspaper clipping dated November 10, 1987, reporting the brutal killing of Ashok Kumar Ganjoo, a young Kashmiri Pandit who had married just two years earlier. The report mentioned that Ashok Ganjoo was on his way to his in-laws’ home at Sathu Barbar Shah, concerned about the well being of his six-month-old daughter, when he was attacked.
According to the newspaper, the assailant — later identified by the police as Ramzan Sheikh — confronted Ashok Ganjoo on the road and stabbed him in the chest. He was rushed to the hospital but succumbed to his injuries soon after.
Police said there was no prior enmity between the two. No clear motive was established.
But for the Kashmiri Pandit community, the message was chillingly clear.
Srinagar was tense that evening. The shock rippled through the narrow lanes of the old city and the small Pandit households that were already living in fear. The All India Kashmiri Pandit Conference (AIKPC) convened an urgent meeting under the chairmanship of H.N. Jattu, condemning what they called an “inhuman” act. They demanded a Judicial Commission headed by a High Court judge to probe the murder.
That was nearly four decades ago.
Whether such a Commission was ever set up, or what became of the investigation, remains a mystery. No public record traces what happened to the accused. No answers were ever made known.
What remains today is a haunting silence — and the fading memory of a young man whose death, in hindsight, seemed like a grim prelude to what awaited the entire community just two years later.
Was the killing of Ashok Kumar Ganjoo a random crime? Or was it, as some in the community later feared, a forewarning — a “test dose” — before the larger tragedy of 1990?
History may never tell us for sure. But somewhere in the forgotten pages of a 1987 newspaper, his name still speaks — a silent reminder of a time when the storm was only beginning to gather.