While Pakistan and India are caught up in the rising tensions at the Line of Control (LoC), Kashmiris across India are facing rising violence following last week's deadly attack that killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
According to media reports, Shabir Ahmad Dar, a man from IIOJK who had been selling intricate pashmina shawls in the hill town of Mussoorie for two decades, was seen being publicly assaulted and harassed along with a fellow Kashmiri salesman in a video that circulating social media.
In the video, the attackers, who were members of a Hindu right-wing group, thrashed and hurled abuses at Shabir and his friend as they ransacked their stall, located on a busy boulevard.
"They blamed us for the attack, told us to leave town and never show our faces again," said Shabir.
His goods, worth thousands of dollars, remain abandoned at the stall. "But we are too scared to go back," he admitted.
While police arrested three individuals later in response to the outcry over the assault, their subsequent release on bail after paying a fine and issuing an apology to the victims has done little to assuage the fear gripping the Kashmiri community in Mussoorie.
But Dar had already left by then, along with dozens of other Kashmiri shawl sellers, who, after living in Mussoorie for decades, say they no longer feel safe there.
The Pahalgam attack has unleashed a wave of hostility towards Kashmiris residing in various Indian cities.
Over a dozen reports have emerged detailing harassment, vilification, and threats faced by Kashmiri vendors and students at the hands of right-wing groups, and even from their own classmates, customers, and neighbours.
Harrowing videos circulating online show Kashmiri students being chased off campuses and assaulted in the streets.
In an appeal for peace, a survivor of the Pahalgam attack, whose naval officer husband was killed, urged people not to target Muslims and Kashmiris. "We want peace and only peace," she pleaded.
Despite these calls for calm, fear has forced many Kashmiris like Shabir to return to their homeland.
Ummat Shabir, a nursing student at a university in Punjab, recounted how women in her neighbourhood labelled her a "terrorist who should be thrown out".
"The same day, my classmate was forced out of a taxi by her driver after he found out she was a Kashmiri," she said. "It took us three days to travel back to Kashmir but we had no option. We had to go."
However, for many who have returned, even home does not feel safe anymore.
In response to the attack, Indian security forces launched a sweeping crackdown in held Kashmir, detaining thousands, sealing off tourist sites, increasing troop presence, and demolishing homes allegedly linked to Kashmiri fighters.
Rights groups and some local leaders have criticised the government’s response, calling the demolitions a form of collective punishment.
“Don’t let innocent people become collateral damage,” occupied Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said. His predecessor, Mehbooba Mufti, warned authorities to distinguish “between terrorists and civilians”.
