Jammu, Sept. 13 -- In the politics of Kashmir, a handful of dates are remembered not merely as entries on a calendar, but as turning points that reshaped an entire era. September 14, 1989 is one such date - the day terrorists gunned down Kashmiri Pandit leader and senior BJP figure Tika Lal Taploo, an assassination now counted among the earliest and most consequential acts of violence that would eventually drive the Kashmiri Pandit community out of the Valley.
His killing deepened a climate of fear that had already begun tightening its grip on the Valley, and in the years that followed, tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits were forced to abandon their homes and flee. Every year on September 14, his death anniversary is observed in Kashmir...