In the old town of Anantnag, life moved to the rhythm of markets, schools, and government offices. Among the many who gave structure to this everyday world was Dwarika Nath, a Kashmiri Pandit who worked in government service. His profession reflected a path chosen by many in his community: a commitment to steady work, a belief in education, and the desire to provide stability for his family. He was a man whose daily routine carried quiet meaning, shaped by discipline and responsibility.

By the spring of 1990, however, those routines no longer guaranteed safety. The insurgency that had begun to consume Kashmir turned ordinary people into targets. Pandit families, even those who had no political involvement, lived under the weight of fear. For Dwarika Nath, this fear became reality on 30 April 1990, the day he was assassinated. His death was recorded in the Panun Kashmir documentation, one more entry in a list that should never have existed.

The record is sparse. It does not tell us how the killing took place or the names of his surviving family members. Yet we can imagine what it meant. A household lost its anchor. A wife, perhaps, was left widowed. Children, if he had them, were suddenly fatherless. An aging parent may have lived to see a son’s life end before their own. The silence in his home after that day would have been unbearable, and the grief that descended on his family impossible to measure.

Anantnag, which had once been a place of coexistence, grew emptier after such killings. Each death carried the message that the Pandit community was no longer safe. With the assassination of men like Dwarika Nath, exile became the only path for thousands of families. His killing was not only a private tragedy but part of a larger unravelling that changed the character of the town forever.

To speak of Dwarika Nath today is to remember more than a statistic. It is to restore him as a man who worked honestly, who lived with dignity, and who deserved the chance to grow old in the place of his birth. His name endures in community records, but his true legacy lies in the memory of a life that mattered and in the grief of those who were forced to continue without him.