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On June 25 1990, Kashmir lost a daughter, a voice, and a part of its conscience.
Girija Tickoo, a young Kashmiri Pandit librarian, was abducted, raped, and killed in one of the most brutal acts of that turbulent decade.

For those of us who belong to her community, the story isn’t distant history. It’s the echo of a time when survival meant flight, when trust became a luxury, and when silence was the only way to cope with the unimaginable.

Before the Storm: Life in the Valley

Kashmir Before 1990

Through the eighties, life in the Valley carried a fragile calm. Pandits and Muslims worked together, shared festivals, and argued politics over noon chai. Beneath that ordinariness, militancy was brewing. Pakistan-backed outfits like JKLF and Hizbul Mujahideen had begun targeting symbols of Indian presence and the small Hindu minority that represented it.

The situation turned volatile after the 1986 Anantnag riots and the 1987 assembly election, whose rigging pushed many young men into armed rebellion. When slogans demanding an Islamic Kashmir rang from mosques on January 19 1990, the message was unmistakable.

Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits fled overnight. Homes were abandoned, careers dissolved, and centuries of belonging ended in days.

Who Was Girija Tickoo?

Girija Tickoo — Babli to her family — worked as a librarian at a local university. She was educated, disciplined, and quietly ambitious.
Like so many of us, she believed that education could outlast politics.

Her family fled to Jammu after the threats of January 1990. Months later, word came that things were returning to normal. Some colleagues assured her it was safe to collect her unpaid salary. She believed them.

The Journey That Became a Trap

June 25 1990

Girija boarded a bus back to Kashmir. The bus was stopped mid-route; five men pulled her out — one was a colleague she had trusted. She was taken away, tortured, and killed with a carpenter’s saw while still alive.

It wasn’t a spontaneous crime. It was a deliberate act of terror meant to tell every Pandit family: don’t come back.

Her murder marked a turning point in our collective psyche. Trust had been severed. Friendship had borders now.

The Silence After the Screams

Her brother identified her mutilated body. What does one say after that? For the family, grief became a permanent tenant. In refugee camps, among tin roofs and dust, they carried her memory quietly.

For years, there was no investigation worth the name. The state machinery was paralysed; witnesses had fled; files disappeared. Her case became one among thousands marked pending — a bureaucratic synonym for forgotten.

Justice That Never Came

Legal Vacuum

Under TADA and later AFSPA, the focus remained on counter-terror operations, not civilian justice.
Few crimes from that period saw convictions because the accused had crossed the border or joined insurgent ranks.

India has no dedicated Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Kashmir. Families like Girija’s still wait for acknowledgement, not revenge — just a formal recognition that these crimes happened.

A Systemic Failure

In three decades, not one of Girija Tickoo’s killers was charged. The case exposes the gap between political statements of solidarity and the absence of judicial will. The silence of law hurts almost as much as the original violence.

The Kashmir Files — When Cinema Broke the Silence

In 2022, The Kashmir Files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, brought our buried stories to the screen. Actress Bhasha Sumbli portrayed a character based on Girija. The audience reaction was raw — people wept, argued, and left theatres shaken.

For many Indians, this was their first encounter with the exodus. For us, it was validation that the pain we had narrated for decades wasn’t myth.

When Her Niece Spoke for All of Us

After the film’s release, Sidhi Raina, Girija’s niece, wrote on Instagram:

“My father’s sister, Girija Tickoo, was a librarian who went to collect her paycheck. On her way back, her bus was stopped. What happened next still leaves me in tears — she was tortured, raped, and brutally murdered with a carpenter’s saw.”

Her words cut through years of polite silence. In telling her aunt’s story, she told the story of an entire generation raised on unspoken grief.

Other Women, Same Pattern

The early nineties saw a string of targeted assaults on Pandit women — Sarla Bhat, Prana Ganjoo, and others whose names rarely appear in textbooks.
Rape was not incidental; it was weaponised to humiliate and uproot.

Each story adds another stitch to a tapestry of loss that continues to define our exile.

The Cost of Exile

Life in Camps

By mid-1990, over 300 000 Pandits lived in cramped tents around Jammu and Delhi. Disease, unemployment, and heat claimed hundreds.
Education collapsed; social hierarchies flattened; we became refugees in our own country.

A Culture Displaced

Our temples decayed, our homes were occupied or destroyed. The language of everyday life — Kashmiri spoken with laughter — began to fade.
For writers and teachers like Girija, displacement meant losing not just land but vocation.

Why Girija Tickoo’s Story Still Matters

Memory as Resistance

Every year that passes without justice increases the risk of historical erasure. Remembering Girija is not dwelling on sorrow; it’s safeguarding truth.

The Moral Test

Her story forces India to ask uncomfortable questions:

• Can justice be selective?

• Do some victims matter more than others?

• What happens when a democracy forgets its own citizens?

For Future Generations

Younger Pandits born after 1990 often know exile only through family anecdotes.
Telling Girija’s story ensures they understand that history isn’t abstract — it has names, faces, and unfinished chapters.

Media, Memory and Accountability

Changing Narratives

For decades, mainstream media avoided discussing Pandit’s suffering, wary of disturbing the political narrative. Social media reversed that balance. Independent voices, documentaries, and survivor accounts have created an alternative archive.

The Role of Education

Universities now include sections on forced displacement and communal violence. Yet school textbooks still devote barely a paragraph to 1990.
Acknowledgement in curricula would be the first real tribute to victims like Girija Tickoo.

Global Recognition

After The Kashmir Files, foreign journalists and scholars revisited the exodus.
Human-rights organisations have begun archiving testimonies.
Diaspora Pandits use digital memorials to record each victim, so names like Girija’s are searchable, verifiable, and permanent.

FAQs About Girija Tickoo

Who was Girija Tickoo?

A Kashmiri Pandit librarian was murdered in 1990 after being abducted and tortured.

Why is she remembered today?

Her death became a symbol of the targeted violence that forced Kashmiri Pandits into exile.

Was her story shown in The Kashmir Files?

Yes, through the character portrayed by actress Bhasha Sumbli.

Did her family get justice?

No. No trial, no verdict, no closure.

Why is her story relevant now?

Because acknowledging such crimes is essential to genuine reconciliation.

Key Takeaway

Girija Tickoo’s story is not only a personal tragedy. It is the mirror of a society that failed to protect its own and the reminder that truth — once spoken — must never again be buried.
Remembering her keeps the promise that our silence will not become complicity.