News Analysis India

Tag: Makhan Lal Bindroo

  • 10 days after militants gunned down Srinagar chemist, kin reopens pharmacy

    By Express News Service

    SRINAGAR: Ten days after Makhan Lal Bindroo was shot dead in his shop at uptown Srinagar, the well-known pharmacy near Iqbal Park re-opened under strict vigil on Friday.

    The chemist shop had been closed after Bindroo, 68, the owner of the Bindroo chemist, was shot dead by militants on October 5. Much to the relief of locals and kin of patients, the pharmacy was reopened with security arrangements in place.

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    Paramilitary and police personnel were deployed in the area, and they were maintaining strict vigil on the movement of the people. No vehicles were being allowed to stop in front of the shop. Bindroo had encouraged his son Dr Siddharth Bindroo, who was working outside, to return to the Kashmir Valley and serve the people.  Sources close to his son Siddharth said he would now be running the pharmacy to continue with the mission of his late father to serve the people. 

    “Life must go on,” said Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti president Sanjay Tickoo, reacting to the reopening of Bindroo chemist shop. It is a positive development, he added. 

  • J&K businessman’s killing sows fear among Pandits

    Express News Service

    SRINAGAR:  The killing of prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman and owner of Bindroo Chemist, Makhan Lal Bindroo, by militants in a highly secured area of Srinagar has sowed fear among the Pandits who chose to live in the Valley without migrating elsewhere. Sanjay Tickoo, president of a non-migrant Pandit group — Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) — said the incident has spread fear among the Sikhs in the Valley.

    Makhan Lal Bindroo, 68, was shot dead by militants at his shop at Iqbal Park area of uptown Srinagar. Bindroo was among the Pandits who did not migrate from the Valley after the eruption of militancy in J&K in 1990. He operated his pharmacy  even during the peak of militancy. Tickoo said it was after 18 years that a non-migrant Pandit had been killed by the militants.

    ALSO READ | ‘You can kill the body, not the spirit’: Slain Kashmiri Pandit’s daughter hails her ‘warrior’ father

    “The last time a non-migrant Pandit was killed was in March 2003, when 24 were gunned down in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district,” he said. Tickoo said a few hours after Bindroo’s killing, he wrote a letter to Lt Governor Manoj Sinha about the threat to the lives of prominent faces of non-migrant Pandits living in the Valley. “I again wrote to him on October 6. But there has been no response till now.”

    Tickoo claimed that for over a year, he had been trying to get an appointment with Lt Governor Sinha but to no avail.  “Bindroo’s killing took place at a highly secured area in Srinagar. If a person is not safe in the highly secured zone of Srinagar, how come a person is safe in villages and far off places in other districts of the Valley,” Tickoo added.

    Most non-migrants staying in south KashmirAbout 800 Kashmiri Pandit families comprising 3,400 persons are living in different parts of the Valley. A majority of them are staying in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag districts

    INDIA FLAYS PAK CHARGESNew Delhi: Responding to Pakistan’s accusations of India committing atrocities in Kashmir, New Delhi has slammed its neighbour for repeating “litany of lies” at the UN, saying the country should stop cleansing its own minorities.  Counsellor and legal advisor at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, Kajal Bhat said Kashmir would always be a part of India. “Pakistan is the biggest perpetrator and supporter of terrorism masquerading as a victim,” she said.

  • J&K: Militants kill Kashmiri Pandit who didn’t flee valley after 1990

    Express News Service

    SRINAGAR:  A prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman, who had not left the Valley even after the militancy erupted in 1990, was among three people killed by militants on Tuesday.

    A police officer said militants targeted Makhan Lal Bindroo, the owner of Srinagar’s famous chemist shop Bindroo Medicate, at his pharmacy at Iqbal Park area in uptown Srinagar in the evening.

    The militants fired from a point blank range, leaving Bindroo in a pool of blood, and escaped from the highly secured area. 

    Bindroo, 65, was rushed to the SMHS Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. SMHS medical superintendent Dr Kanwaljeet Singh told this newspaper that Bindroo was hit by four bullets.

    “One of the bullets hit him on eyebrow,” he said.

    Immediately after the militant attack, police, CRPF and army personnel rushed to the area and launched a combing and search operation.

    The area where the attack took place is highly secured as police and paramilitary personnel remain stationed.

    A police station is barely a few hundred meters away from the pharmacy and a paramilitary CRPF camp is also not far off.

    Unlike others of his community, Bindroo had stayed back with his wife and operated his pharmacy. Bindroo Medicate is one-stop shop for patients as the medicines unavailable anywhere else can be found there. 

    An hour after Bindroo’s killing, militants shot dead a non-local street vendor at Lal Bazar area in downtown Srinagar.

    The deceased, who was selling his ware in a handcart, was identified as Virender Paswan of Bhagalpur from Bihar.  

    In the third attack, militants shot dead a civilian in Hajin area of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district in the evening. Militants fired from blank range at Mohammad Shafi, a civilian, in Shahgund Hajin area.

    He was also declared brought dead by doctors.

    The killings drew widespread condemnations from all the political parties. J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha strongly condemned the killings and said perpetrators of these heinous acts would be brought to justice very soon.