( Kashmir Rechords Exclusive)

Thirty-four years ago, this day on March 19, 1990, Bal Krishan Ganjoo,  an Engineer working with Indian Telecommunication Department, was shot dead by terrorists on the same day when  “Multi- Party Political Leaders’’ of India were requesting  terrorists in Kashmir to shun the path of violence. The appeal fell on deaf ears  as terrorists continued with their target killings to scare away minorities.

  Newspaper reports of that day ( one available with Kashmir Rechords)  say that “militants had spread bullets on  B K Ganjoo from a deadly Kalashnikov rifle  near his   residence at  Chota Bazar, Srinagar and managed to escape in the adjoining locality in a car which was waiting for them at a distance’’.  B. K Ganjoo’s only fault was that he was a Kashmiri Pandit who wanted to ensure that telecommunication services did not get affected. He was thus on the hit-list of terrorists for his dedication towards his duty.

   It is believed that terrorists  had followed Ganjoo when he was on his way to  home. Upon entering the house, his wife  reportedly hid him in a barrel of rice kept in their attic. Terrorists had entered the house intending to kill Ganjoo, but they left after they could not find him. However, one of Ganjoo’s neighbours snitched to terrorists that Ganjoo was hiding in a rice barrel. Terrorists had gone back into his house and shot him dead inside the barrel.

 Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri in his 2022 The Kashmir Files has gone a step ahead in showing to the masses that Ganjoo’s wife was then forcefully fed the blood-soaked rice. Newspapers of March 20, 1990, having carried the gruesome incident, however, mention that one Dinesh Lal was critically injured during the shoot-out. The news item also mentions that with the killing of BK Ganjoo, more members of minority community had  started leaving the Valley in panic. Ganjoo was the second official of the Telecom Department who was killed in Srinagar during March 1990.

After the release of The Kashmir Files, B K Ganjoo’s daughter, Deeksha Ganjoo in a letter to  Vivek Agnihotri and Pallavi had expressed her gratitude for highlighting the killing of her father in the movie.  The letter was later shared by Agnihotri on his twitter account.

Multi-Party  Failure Meet on Kashmir

On the day when B K Ganjoo was killed, some  politicians of National Parties were already in Kashmir.  On the same day, they had released a joint statement, which was adopted by leaders of Janata Dal, Telegu Desam Party, Asom Gana Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI-M, Congress-(I), besides State’s National Conference.

The leaders of these political parties had appealed to terrorists to“ abjure violence and uphold peace’’. However, the statement did not carry a single word about Kashmiri Pandits or that of B K Ganjoo’s killing.

As politicians failed to prevail upon terrorists to shun the path of violence, the latter had  instead resorted to more target killings during the last 10 days of March 1990. Kashmir Rechords will try to highlight those killings in its future Blogs.