'Butcher of Kashmiri Pandits', Bitta Karate, admitted to killings on video; 31 years on, he faces a murder trial

It’s a name that still haunts India’s Kashmiri Pandits and now, 31 years after he admitted to killing “more than 20” Kashmiri Pandits or “maybe more than 30-40” in 1990, Farooq Ahmed Dar — more popularly known as Bitta Karate — will finally face a trial for the murder of Satish Tickoo, a local businessman and Karate’s close friend.

Tickoo’s family has moved the Srinagar Sessions Court through advocate Utsav Bains and supported by activist Vikas Raina and the court hearing will commence on Wednesday at 10.30am.

Karate, who has been heading the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) for years, came back into the limelight after the movie ‘Kashmir Files’ highlighted his role in the systematic killings of Kashmiri Pandits, a “feat” he admitted to on camera. Asked to choose between “raliv, galiv ya chaliv” (convert, die or leave), scores of Kashmiri Pandits were killed and tens of thousands fled the Kashmir Valley, leaving behind the life they had always known.

But who exactly is Bitta Karate?

The targeted killing of Kashmiri Pandits began in January 1990, soon after the kidnapping of then Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya which ended with the release of dreaded terrorists. Bitta Karate led the genocide till he was arrested in June 1990.

Under detention in 1991, he gave an interview in which he said he became a terrorist “because I was harassed by the local administration”. He also admitted to killing “more than 20” Kashmiri Pandits or “maybe more than 30-40” in 1990.

Emphasising that he did not kill “innocent people”, Karate said he merely followed “orders from above” given by Ashfaq Majeed Wani, the JKLF top commander. Wani was the man who took Bitta Karate and others to Pakistan for terror training. He was later killed in an encounter.

Karate admitted his first victim was Satish Kumar Tickoo and he “got orders from above to kill him. He was a Hindu boy”. Karate allegedly killed 42 people before he was arrested. He said, “I used pistol to kill from a distance of 20 or 30 yards. Sometimes, I also used AK-47 rifles to fire at the security personnel.”

Sixteen years after his arrest, Karate was released on bail in 2006, close on the heels of the Supreme Court verdict quashing his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA). He received a rousing welcome in the Kashmir Valley on his release, with flower petals being showered on him during a procession.

He was arrested again by the NIA in 2019 on charges of terror funding under the anti-terror laws after the Pulwama attack.