The Kashmir Director-General of Police, A. K. Suri, said the gunmen were dressed in army uniforms. He said they visited the village of Nadimarg and told police they were Indian army soldiers and wanted to carry out a search operation. They then snatched the policemen´s weapons and shot their victims. No militant outfit has so far claimed responsibility for the dastardly attack.

The entire area has been cordoned off and massive search operations were mounted. Police sources said the gunmen snatched weapons, including four selfloading rifles from the policemen guarding the Pandits. The State Governor, who was in New Delhi at the time of the attack, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, his daughter Mehbooba Mufti, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, and many other leaders rushed to the site to take stock of the situation.

While leaving for the spot, Azad admitted that the killings were indeed a setback to the Congress-PDP coalition plans to bring back Kashmir Pundits to the Valley. "Without Kashmiri Pandits, Kashmir is incomplete.

And elements (militants) seemed not happy with our pledge to settle them in Kashmir," he said, adding that the coalition still strongly believed that they will try their best and succeed to fulfil their vow in their aim to bring the Pundits back to the Valley. The killings of Kashmiri Pandits came at a time when the State Government had spoken of its plans to bring back migrant Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley and rehabilitate them at two places—Mattan in Anantnag and Khirbhawani in Srinagar.

It is worth mentioning that the latest killings were a setback to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed´s plans to establish a safe haven for members of the Kashmiri Pandit community that had been driven out of Kashmir by militancy in the Valley. The State Government had drawn up plans to settle the Pandits around the holy spring shrine at Tullamullah in Srinagar district and Mattan in south Kashmir´s Anantnag district.

After the January 26, 1998 massacre of 23 Kashmiri Pandits at Wandhama, Pandit villages have been provided security by the State Government.

Sources said the Pandits living in Nadimarg had not migrated to Jammu and had stayed back in their village. Nearly 5,000 members of the community continue to live in the Kashmir Valley.

The Pulwama massacre came a day after former Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Abdul Majid Dar, was shot dead in Sopore town in Baramulla district in north Kashmir.

Dar, along with his mother and sister, had gone to Noorbagh to supervise the construction of his house. As he was leaving the place, militants opened fire on Dar´s car, injuring all three. Dar was rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries before aid could be administered.

The ambitious plan of the Jammu and Kashmir government to initiate the process of the return of the Kashmiri Pandits seems to have received a death blow with the Pulwama massacre as the displaced people hardened their posture over the issue. Concerns over security in the event of the return of the community, most of whom moved out of the Valley in 1989 after militancy erupted there, heightened after 24 of their brethren still living in Kashmir were butchered in cold blood. Although "eager and willing" to return to their motherland, the Pandits, however, have started viewing with suspicion the Mufti Sayeed government’s plan to resettle sections of the community at two places in the Valley on an experimental basis."While the State Government is drawing up plans to make the migrants return, it has miserably failed to protect the lives and property of those small number of Pandits who opted to stay back in the Valley. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee assured Kashmiri Pandits staying in the Kashmir Valley that all steps would be taken to ensure that attacks on the community are not allowed to recur.

The government will soon come out with a "rehabilitation policy", including a financial package for the Kashmiri migrants displaced more than a decade ago by militancy in the Valley, Vajpayee assured a Kashmiri Pandit delegation that called on him in New Delhi. "The Prime Minister also assured the delegation that the government would soon consider a policy for rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants. The delegation expressed its concern over the security of Pandits staying in the Valley in the wake of the Pulwama massacre.