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caste of Hindus whose name means teacher - occupied 20 percent of
white-collar jobs. They had a large presence in education - 60
percent of all the region's teachers were Hindus.
But when the Insurgency broke out in 1989, sparked by a
rigged election that kept Muslim separatists out of office, posters
appeared in Pandit neighborhoods accusing Hindus of
collaboration with the Indian government and threatening their
lives. Pandits fled by hundreds of thousands, some to southern
Jammu and others to Delhi and beyond.
Today, qualified Muslim teachers have replaced Pandits in
public schools. But a few hundred private religious schools, some of
them owned by promilitant groups such as Jamaate Islami, have also
sprung up. Out of 900,000 students statewide, perhaps 200,000
students attend Islamic private schools full time.
Even some separatist leaders say they have noticed a dramatic
change in the mind-set of Kashmir's young people - not necessarily
because of the influence of religious schools, but because of the
absence of diversity both in the classroom and outside it.
"Kashmiris are religious, but they are not communal
[exclusive], and every Muslim believes that we want the
Pandits to return," says Mirwaiz Umar.
The trouble in Mexico is that crime statistics are incomplete. Most
crimes go unreported, because victims dread the hours of waiting
and the endless paperwork involved.
With little prospect of justice being done, only 7 percent of
assault victims bother to report the crime to the police.
Still, even a flawed system of accountability could be crucial
to free the Mexican police force from the grip of a tightly knit group
of officers known as the "brotherhood." For the past 20 years, this
brotherhood has stood in the way of modem crime fighting. It
controls most of the department's operations and takes a cut of
policemen's bribes.

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