Of course, people will now be branded Islamophobic for being extra cautious while renting out to Kashmiri Muslims. But perhaps it is time for an honest reckoning within Kashmiri society itself. The entire terror network behind yesterday’s Delhi blast has been traced to Kashmiri operatives.
The Pahalgam massacre too was facilitated by local Kashmiri Muslims who helped terrorists target innocent Hindu tourists. The same hatred lay behind the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, when an entire community was hounded out of its homeland under the slogans of faith and fear. These patterns are not coincidences. They speak of a deep, unresolved rot that continues to plague Kashmiri society, which has steadily normalised extremism.
The gradual shift towards suicide bombings at the behest of foreign handlers also marks a chilling escalation, one that mirrors Pakistani society. It should force Kashmir’s political, religious, and civil voices to confront some uncomfortable questions. How long can denial, silence, or selective outrage substitute for introspection? A society that refuses to challenge its own extremists eventually becomes hostage to them. Kashmir has already lost generations to this madness. The least it can do now is pause, reflect, and reclaim its conscience before it loses whatever remains of it, if anything still does.