Investigators are probing whether business rivalry could have been the motive behind a 70-year-old jeweller’s killing in Srinagar on Thursday even as a little-known group has claimed responsibility for murdering him for acquiring property in the city under the region’s new domicile rules.
The rules were formulated in 2020, a year after the end of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status that, among other things, prevented people from outside the region from owning property and getting jobs in the Union Territory.
Satpal Nischal, the jeweller, who ran a shop for over four decades on Srinagar’s Hari Singh High Street, was from Punjab’s Gurdaspur Punjab. He had purchased a house and a shop after acquiring domicile status for him and his family as per the new rules.
Police said they have obtained some leads from the murder scene and were looking at all angles, including The Resistance Front (TRF)’s claim that it murdered Nischal. “We are investigating the case and are even looking what TRF has said in a Facebook post,” said sub-divisional police officer Shahjahan Ahmad, who is involved in the investigation into the murder.
In the Facebook post, the TRF claimed Nischal was part of what it described as a “settler-colonial project” in Kashmir. It added he was murdered in an “intelligence-based operation” while calling Nischal an agent of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological fountainhead.
{{/usCountry}}In the Facebook post, the TRF claimed Nischal was part of what it described as a “settler-colonial project” in Kashmir. It added he was murdered in an “intelligence-based operation” while calling Nischal an agent of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological fountainhead.
{{/usCountry}}The TRF claimed Nischal was “posing as a businessman” and added he “was an active participant” in the demographic change and settler project “run by Hindutva fascists to alter the demography of Kashmir”.
The post said TRF has warned Indian nationals irrespective of faith, caste, or colour that they will be treated as RSS agents and not civilians if they come to Kashmir with the intention of settling here. “For a long time, we warned and now the time has come when we shall warn no more. We know your names, we know where you live and we know what you do and we are coming for you,” said the TRF post.