After the Independence of India,
the one community in India which suffered for its commitment to patriotism and
Indian unity was the minority community of the Hindus in the Jammu and Kashmir
State. The Hindus constantly faced the accusation of the Muslims that they had
conspired with the Government of India to secure the accession of the State to
India against the will of the Muslims. They suffered the charge that in l947,
they had, with the help of the Hindu ruler of the State, Maharaja Hari Singh
and in connivance with the leaders of the National Conference, treacherously
sabotaged the Muslim endeavour to achieve the integration of the Muslims of
Jammu and Kashmir with the Muslim homeland of Pakistan. They were also indicted
for having opposed the Muslim resistance against the accession of the State to
India. They bore the brunt of the Muslim precedence, the National Conference
established in the State and after the National Conference broke up in 1953,
they were proclaimed the enemies of the Muslim movement, the Plebiscite Front
led in the State. Even after the Plebiscite Front was wound up in 1975, the
condemnation to which the Hindus were subjected did not end. They continued to
be charged of being the arch enemies of the Muslim nation of Kashmir, a threat
to the Muslim religion and its political solidarity and the motive force behind
all secular processes in the State which obstructed the Muslim struggle for
Pakistan. In fact, they faced the first crucifixion for their loyalty to their
country. The first shots fired by the militants were received by the
Hindus.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah demanded a
separate homeland for Muslims within British India, as explained by a 1940
speech: “The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies,
social customs, and literatures. They neither inter-marry nor inter-dine
together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are
based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.”
India got independence on 15 August,
1947 from the British rule but was divided on communal basis creating Pakistan,
separate Muslim homeland. The creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a landmark in
the struggle for the unification of the Muslim Ummah. Ever since Pakistan was
created, it has followed a sustained policy of thrust for expansion towards the
east, as a major strategy to spread across Jammu & Kashmir and take the
Muslim power to the predominantly Muslim regions of Central Asia, Mongolia and
Sinkiang.
The last Dogra ruler of Jammu & Kashmir
State, Maharaja Hari Singh, signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, to unite his domains with
the State of Indian Union. Soon after, tribals and regulars from Pakistan
invaded the State but the Indian security forces repulsed the attack and pushed
the invaders out. In January 1949, a ceasefire agreement was concluded between
India and Pakistan with one-third of the state territories still remaining
under the illegal occupation of Pakistan.
“In July 1947, just a month before partition,
Mahatma Gandhi found time to visit Kashmir where he said that in an India which
had become dark all around, Kashmir was the only hope with its peace amongst
religions.” (Culture and Political History of Kashmir, by P.N.K. Bamzai, p.745)
In
the territories of the State, which were overrun by the invading hordes, more
than thirty-eight thousand Hindus and Sikhs were massacred, just in five days.
Thousands of women were abducted; hundreds of them committed suicide to escape
capture. All Hindu and Sikh temples and shrines were burned down or destroyed
to erase the last vestiges of the Hindu and Sikh culture and religion in the
occupied territories. The whole Hindu and Sikh population of the territories
occupied by the invading army, which escaped the holocaust, took refuge in
Jammu. The Buddhists in Baltistan who escaped the onslaught of the invading
army took refuge in Ladakh. The assertion that Jammu and Kashmir presented a
heaven of peace and brotherhood while the rest of India smoldered in communal
violence is a myth.
Prof. Balraj Madhok wrote in his
book, Kashmir: The Storm
Center of the World, “Hardly two thousand people out of about
25 thousand living at that time in the ill-fated town (of Mirpur) managed to
reach Jhangar (in India) in safety. The rest were ruthlessly butchered. The
number of women abducted from there ran into thousands. Most of them were
paraded and then sold in the bazaars of Jhelum, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The
barbarities of the Pakistan troops and civilians on these hapless women who
were kept for some time in Alibeg camp before their dispersal to different
towns put to shame the worst orgies of rape and violence associated with the
hordes of Ghengiz Khan and Nadir Shah. The loot obtained by the Pakistanis from
these towns, especially from Mirpur, went into crores. The floor of every house
in Mirpur was dug by raiders in search of hoarded treasures.”
“Although there are detailed
accounts given by survivors of carnages in Muzaffarabad, Rajouri, Poonch,
Mirpur, Deva Vatala and Kotli in Jammu region, very few written accounts on the
Pandits have been published. Dr Ramesh Tamiri has worked on the oral history of
tribal invasion with special focus on Hindu minorities in the Valley. Accounts
of the Pandits in Muzaraffarbad, Mirpur, Kotli and Gilgit-Baltistan were
collected, giving an insight into the era when J&K saw large-scale
organized killings. As per his research, over 200 villages in north and central
Kashmir where Pandits lived came under Pakistani occupation before their
liberation by the Indian Army. More than 140 killings of the Pandits took place
in the execution style. There were over 10 massacres, hundreds of houses burnt,
thousands of houses looted and hundreds of cases of forced conversions, rape
and mass migration.” (The Tribune October 27, 2017)
The Muslimisation of the various
political and economic processes had begun in the State, soon after Sheikh Abdullah
came to power in 1948 and the minorities in Kashmir were at the receiving end. Under the pretext of economic reforms, the Big Landed
Estates Abolition Act, 1950, was drawn up that year. It placed a ceiling on
land ownership at 186 kanals. The rest of the land of a landlord was
redistributed among share-croppers and landless labourers, without any
compensation to the landlord. Most of the landlords worst affected were
Kashmiri Hindus. During 1954, India accorded special status under
Art.370 to the State. The admissions to higher educational courses and
institutions to Hindus were reduced. Simultaneously, their opportunities to
enter state government employment were slashed. Not only had such drastic
actions taken, the State government changed the names of 684 villages, which had
Hindu names by a government order No. REV/S/340 of 1981 dated 13-10-1981.
“The terrorist violence raging in Jammu and Kashmir is another ‘Direct
Action’ that Pakistan and Muslim secessionists inside the state have launched
to force a second partition on India. The campaign of terror spread in Jammu
and Kashmir follows the same pattern which the ‘Direct Action’ followed in
1946; genocide of Hindus, their ethnic cleansing by forced exodus from the
Muslim majority provinces of India and the destruction of their religious
identity. The Jihad which Pakistan launched in Kashmir in 1990, to liberate
Jammu and Kashmir from the Indian hold, mounted its first attack on the Hindus
in Kashmir. The terrorist assault on the Hindus in Kashmir commenced in the
fall of 1989, and by the summer of 1990, more than seven hundreds of them had
been assassinated in cold blood. Among those killed were people from all
section of the Hindu Society; teachers, lawyers, political activists, media
men, intellectuals, and men of small means. The massacre of the Hindus was
accompanied by a widespread campaign of intimidation and threat to drive out
the Hindus from the Kashmir province, burn their temples and religious shrines
and homes and loot their property.” (Bitter Truth by Dr. M.K.Teng and
C.L.Gadoo)
The ethnic cleansing of the Hindus
of Kashmir in 1990 is one of the few episodes, in which a whole community of
people was subjected to genocide and driven out of its natural habitat. The armed
struggle, the cross-border terrorism sponsored and supported by Pakistan after
active military efforts and negotiations failed several times to win over Jammu
& Kashmir, made a covert armed militancy a strategy through which it could
fight against India avoiding war and negotiations. Pakistan trained and
assisted the militants to implement a guerrilla war in Jammu & Kashmir, to
inflict heavy casualties on minorities and Para-military forces. Pakistan also
planned a proxy war against India, to impose a heavy military and economic
burden on India. Pakistan received funds from the Muslim countries and
organizations to finance the proxy war.
The genocide, the Hindus in
Kashmir, were subjected to and the exodus forced upon them by the terrorist
regimes, right from the moment they began their military operations in the
State, was undertaken in accordance with a well laid out plan. The division of
the State in between India and Pakistan had been proposed as a basis for
settlement of the dispute over Jammu & Kashmir, by the United Nations
mediator on Kashmir Sir Owen Dixon in 1950. The plan envisaged the ethnic
extermination of the Hindus in the Kashmir province and the Muslim majority
regions of the Jammu province to bring about the de-Sanskritisation of the part
of the State situated to the west of the river Chenab and prepare the ground
for its separation from the Shivalik plains, situated to the east of the river
Chenab. When the terrorist regimes, extended their military operations to the
Muslim majority districts of the Jammu province, they followed the same policy
there to bring about the ethnic extermination of the Hindus.
Gen. Zia-Ul-Haq President of
Pakistan addressing a top secret meeting in April, 1988 at Islamabad
said; “Gentlemen, let there be no mistake, however, that our aim remains quite
clear and firm the liberation of the Kashmir Valley. Our Muslim Kashmiri
brothers can't be allowed to stay with India for any length of time now. The
Kashmiris have a few qualities, which we can exploit. First, his shrewdness and
intelligence; second his power to persevere under pressure, and the third, if I
may say so, he is a master of political intrigue. If we provide him with means
through which he can utilize these qualities he will deliver the goods".
He elaborated his Kashmir Plan OPERATION TOPAC; “we plant our chosen men in all
the key positions and whip up anti-Indian feelings amongst the students and
peasants preferably on some religious issues.” (Inter Service
Intelligence Services)
The terrorist organisations
carried out systematic operations to massacre the Hindus and flush them out of
the Kashmir Valley. As the death toll of the Hindus increased, they began to
evacuate from the Valley in larger numbers. The State Government reacted to the
elimination of the Hindus with utter passivity and indifference. The Janata Dal
Government at the Centre lacked the will to deal with terrorist violence. With
the Home Department of the Government of India, placed under Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, a Kashmiri Muslim, who
too was committed to the precedence of the Muslim majority in the State, and
who carried out the behests of the powerful Muslim lobbies in the Janata Dal,
the State Government, could not deal with the terrorist violence with any
firmness. The ludicrous drama of the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter
of the Home Minister and the consequent breakdown of the Central Government,
had left little moral strength with the State Government to face the terrorist
challenge.
The brief spell, during which Sh. Jagmohan
tried to retrieve the situation, was a half-hearted endeavour, which ultimately
ended in a fiasco. On January 4, 1990, a local newspaper had
published a press release issued by Hizbul Mujahideen. The group had urged
young people to wage jihad for secession from India and accession to Pakistan.
The release had also ordered Hindus to leave the valley. A campaign to incite
the Muslim population was carried out. Inflammatory speeches were made from
loudspeakers of mosques. Posters were stuck on the houses and shops of Kashmiri
Pandits ordering them to either embrace Islam or leave the valley. They were
threatened with their lives. Reports of Kashmiri Pandits being killed had
started to come out. Posters were also pasted outside Mosques and at selected
busy places labeling Kashmiri Pandits as agents of India and branding them as
traitors. The ‘Alsafa’ was in the vanguard publishing these gory threats. This
paper virtually became the mouth piece of the terrorists and played a capital
role in fanning its flames and carrying them to remote corners of the Valley.
Kashmiri Muslims were clear in their slogan; ‘Asi gache Pakistan, Batav ros
Batnev san’ (we want Pakistan, inclusive of Kashmiri women and exclusive of
Kashmiri Pandits). ‘Kashmir main rehna hai, Allah-ho- Akbar kahna hoga’
‘Musalmano jago, Kafiro bhago’, ‘Islam hamara maqsad ha Kuran hamara dastur
hai, jehad hamara rasta hai’, Kashmir banega Pakistan. Newspapers ‘Aftab’ and
‘Azaan’ joined in the choice songs in praise of the mujahids.
As a major terrorist assault on
the Hindus was delivered in January 1990, the Hindu temples, shrines, Hindu
religious institutions, and their homes, came under heavy attack of the
terrorists. Almost all over the Kashmir province, temples were desecrated,
subjected to bomb attacks and at many places, set on fire. The forced
displacement of Kashmiri Hindus and their targeted killings were organized with
a clear objective of ensuring that Kashmir valley is cleansed of Hindus. As
such, about 85,000 Kashmiri Pandit families were forced out from their ancient
indigenous habitat by terrorists and religious extremists.
The terrorist violence struck the
Hindus in its full fury in January 1990. The death and destruction it brought
to the Hindus was widespread. Not much of what happened those days in Kashmir
is known in the rest of the country as a concerted campaign of disinformation
was carried on to camouflage the ravages the community of the Hindus was
subjected to. By the end of the year, the death toll of the Hindus had risen to
about eight hundred. The white paper on
Kashmir, the Joint Human Rights Committee, Delhi, issued in 1996 noted: “A
computation of the data of the massacred Hindus on the basis of reports in the
local press, news papers published in Srinagar, and the other townships in
Kashmir, reveals that the number of the Hindus killed ran into several
thousands.”The White Paper notes further “Among the killed were several hundred
Hindus who were reported missing. Among the missing were many Hindus whose
bodies were never identified and were disposed off by the State Government
agencies at their will. Many of the people killed and still to be identified
were Hindus.”
The exodus of the Hindus picked up
pace as the summer set in. By the end of the year 1990, the larger part of the
Hindu community of Kashmir had left. The rest followed as the terrorist
violence intensified. The White Paper noted: “In the rural areas of the Valley,
cadres of the secessionist organisations and their supporters, almost of every
shade and commitment, the supporters of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
in the vanguard, did not hide their hostility towards the Hindus. At many
places, even in Srinagar and the other townships, Kashmiri, Hindus were openly
charged of espionage for India. The indictment spelt death”. While the Hindus
began to leave Kashmir the Jihadi flanks unfolded their plans to destroy the
Sanskrit heritage of the Kashmir. The homes and religious shrines the Hindus
left-behind, were ransacked and their properties were looted, burnt down.
According to late Ghulam Mohammad Sofi, former editor of daily Srinagar Times
“nearly 32,000 Kashmiri Pandits’ houses have been burnt since 1991”
Shri Jagmohan in his book “Shaping India's
New Destiny’ states; ‘OnJuly 13, 1989, Tikka Lal Taploo, an advocate and vice
president of BJP, was shot dead near his house. Judge N.K. Ganjoo, who had
sentenced Maqbool Butt, was killed on November 4, 1989, in broad day light at
the busy Hari Singh Street. Pran Nath Butt, a noted journalist was done to
death on December 29, 1989. The murder of these three prominent leaders of the
Kashmiri Pandit community was in line with the terrorist policy of killing one and
frightening one thousand. The objective was to secure exodus of the Pandits
from the Valley. No one was arrested and tried for these crimes.”
Selective Killings:
The first staggering blow which
the Jihad delivered to the Hindus in Kashmir was the assassination of Pandit
Tika Lal Taploo, on September 14, 1989, a Kashmiri Hindu leader, who was widely
respected in his community. A member of the National Executive of the
Bharatiya, Janata Party, Taploo was an indefatigable man, who had fought
untiringly against the marginalisation of the Hindus in the State. Taploo was
given a tearful farewell by thousands of the people of his community, who
accompanied his funeral procession.
Soon after Taploo’s death, Justice
Nilkanth Ganjoo, a retired session judge of Srinagar, who had sentenced Maqbool
Bhat founder
JKLF,
to death, was shot dead. As a Sessions court judge, he had presided over the trial of Maqbool
Bhat in the murder of police inspector Amar Chand. He sentenced Bhat and
one other to death. On November 4, 1989, a group of three terrorists
surrounded Ganjoo as he was in the Hari Singh Street market near the High
Court in Srinagar, was shot in broad daylight and was not allowed to move to
hospital, till he died on spot.
Pandit Prem Nath Bhat, a leading advocate
of Anantnag in Kashmir, a selfless social activist, a journalist par
excellence, writer of repute and patriot of the core, was assassinated on
December 27, 1989 at his house by masked Jihadis.
In November 1989, Sheela Tikoo was
gunned down near Habba Kadal. In
December 1989, JKLF members kidnapped Dr Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti
Mohammad Sayeed, demanding the release of five militants, which was subsequently
fulfilled. On January 4, 1990, Srinagar-based newspaper Aftab released a
message, threatening all Hindus to leave Kashmir immediately, sourcing it to
the militant organization Hizbul Mujahideen.
On February
2, 1990, Satish Tikoo, a young Hindu social-worker, was murdered near his own
house in Habba Kadal, Srinagar.
Pandit Lassa Kaul, 45-year old, Director Doordarshan Kashmir, was accused
of relaying anti-militancy news. He was visiting his ailing parents at Banamohla. As he stepped
out of his vehicle, he was gunned down by terrorists on 13th February 1990.
Pandit Avtar Krishan Koul, Deputy
Director Food Supplies was gunned down by masked terrorists in his office. He
had enquired into the disappearance of some truckloads of food grain supplies
reportedly taken away by JKLF activists at gun point.
Ms. Girija Tickoo, a laboratory
assistant in a Government school in Bandipora, Kashmir, was coming out
of the school building after collecting her salary when she was accosted by
gunmen who kidnapped her to some unknown place where she was gang raped. The
assailants, fearing she might disclose their identity, forcibly put her under
machine saw and cut her body into pieces.
The
startling fact is that she was still alive when she was gang-raped and sliced
in half. Her husband was killed as well
Professor Nilakanth Raina (Lala) of
Jammu & Kashmir Government Higher Education Department, an eminent
historian and researcher was called by masked and armed gunmen at about dusk at
his home in Fateh Kadal locality in Srinagar and gunned down at point blank
range. Professor Nilakanth was conducting researches into the Buddhist
antiquity of Jama Masjid mosque in Nowhatta, Srinagar.
On 4th of March, 1990, Mrs. M.N
Paul, the wife of an Inspector of BSF was kidnapped, raped and then murdered
because she happened to be the wife of a government official. Also in March
1990, B.K. Ganjoo, an engineer in Telecommunication Department was brutally
gunned down while he tried to hide himself in an empty drum used for storing
rice. The assailants climbed the third floor of his house to catch hold of him.
His wife begged the murderers to kill her too but only to receive the sadist
remark, "there should be someone left to cry over his dead body".
In April 1990, a nurse named Sarla
Bhat was kidnapped and continuously raped for several days before her dead body
was thrown on the roadside. In May 1990, Mrs. Prana Ganjoo and her husband
Prof. K.L. Ganjoo were kidnapped in Sopore where the woman was raped and then
both of them were murdered.
Pandit Sarwanand Kaul Premi (64)
was a
famous poet, journalist, research scholar, Gandhian, social reformer and
activist living in Anantnag district, Kashmir. He had translated
the Bhagwat Gita, Gitanjali and Ramayan into Kashmiri. He along with his young married
son, Verinder (27) was kidnapped when four armed terrorists
forced entry into their house dragged him out along with his son in the nearby
jungle for enquiry and both were gunned down on 30.4.1990.
In June 1990, Mrs. J.L.
Ganjoo, her husband and her sister-in-law (husband's sister) were killed in
their home in BanaMohalla, Srinagar. In July 1990, a working woman, namely Teja
Dhar was shot dead on the roadside in Ali Kadal, Srinagar. In July 1990, a
Pandit lady named Nanaji was gunned down on the roadside in Batamaloo,
Srinagar. In July 1990, Dr. Shani was locked up in her house in Karan Nagar and
then the house was set on fire. Flames consumed her alive.
In August 1990, Babli Raina was raped
in front of her family members in her house and then shot dead. Rattan Lal Raina
was
employed in Jammu and Kashmir Bank. He was led to the trap of death laid for
him by a Muslim friend who led him to a lane of the locality where the Muslim
killers were waiting for him. He was shot dead by them on August 18, 1990. Radha
Krishen Kaw was a veteran teacher and had retired as a Tehsil Education
Officer. He all through his career had taught thousands of Muslim scholars and
was busy in the teaching processes even after his retirement. The Muslim
assassins entered the school where he was teaching a class and forcibly took
him out from the back door of the school and sprayed him over with bullets on August
24, 1990.
Chuni Lal Shalla, Inspector of J&K
Police, was posted at Langate near Kupwara. He wanted to visit his family at
Sopore. To avoid being identified he had grown beard. A Muslim constable
working under him at Langate also accompanied him in the same bus to Sopore. On
reaching Sopore, two militants came searching for him but could not recognise
him. They had hardly left when the Muslim Constable called them back. The
Constable himself took out a dagger and slashed off his entire right cheek
along with the beard. The cruel Constable jolted him saying "You suar
(pig). I will not allow you to have Jamat-i-Islami type beard on your other
cheek also. He slashed off his left cheek too. The two militants and the Muslim
Constable then battered his face with hockey sticks shouting "Bastard, we
won't waste a bullet on you". They fled the scene and left him bleeding to
die.
Mass
Massacres:
As the Jehadi war groups and the terrorist
regimes settled down to carry on a prolonged war of attrition in Jammu and
Kashmir, they changed their tactics. They reduced the frequency of sporadic
surprise strikes on specifically identified targets to pre-planned major military
strikes on Hindu localities to carry out mass-massacres. The mass massacres
were brutal and had s staggering effect on the entire community of the Hindus
in the State. The massacres were carried out at different places in the
Kashmir province : at Sangrahampora where eight people were killed; at
Wandahama in North Kashmir, in January 1998, where twenty three Hindus were
killed; at Anantnag in South Kashmir, where twelve Bihari labourers were killed
in July 1999; at Chattisinghpora where thirty-six Sikhs were killed in March
2000, at Pahalgam, where thirty-two Hindus, including twenty-nine pilgrims to
Amarnath Shrine, were killed in August 2000; and at Nadimarg, where twenty-four
Hindus were killed in March 2003.
Wandahama Massacre
In the Jammu province, the mass massacres were
widespread and the death-toll heavier. Seventeen Hindus were killed in Kishtwar
during 13-14 August 1993; sixteen Hindus were killed in Kishtwar in January
1996; Seventeen Hindus were killed in Simber, Doda in May 1996; twenty-nine
Hindus were killed in Dakhikot Prankot, Doda in January 1998; Eleven Hindus
(defence committee members) were killed in Dessa, Doda in May 1998, twenty nine
Hindus were killed in Chapnari Doda, in June 1998; twenty Hindus were killed in
separate terrorist attacks in Chinathakuri, and Shrawan, Doda in July 1998;
seventeen Hindus were killed in Surankot Poonch in June 1999; fifteen Hindus
wee killed in Thatri, Doda, in July 1999; seventeen Hindus were killed in
Manjakot Rajouri in March 2001; fifteen Hindus were killed in Cherjimorah,
Dodain July 2001’, Sixteen Hindus were killed in Sarothdhar, Doda in August
2001’, Thirty four Hindus were killed in Kaluchak, Jammu in May 2002;
twenty-nine Hindus were killed in Rajiv Nagar, Jammu in July 2002; seventeen
Hindus March2003; twelve Hindus were killed in Surankote, Poonch in June 2004;
ten Hindus were killed in Budhal, Rajouri in October 2005; three of a Hindu
family were killed in Chaal, Udhampur in April 2006 and thirty Hindus were
killed in Thana Kulhand, Doda in April 2006.
Terrorism has taken a very heavy toll
of the personnel of the security organizations of the State. A fairly large
numbers of the personnel of the para-military forces and the Indian army have
been killed in the hit and run guerrilla attacks mounted on them by terrorists.
The attacks have involved sudden assaults on para-military pickets in civil
areas, ambush of army and para-military convoys, mine blasts, rocket and bomb
blasts on police stations and other security installations.
Different organizations of Kashmiri
Pandits jointly petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) from 1994-1996
for the enforcement of their human rights and right to life, the NHRC way in
1998-99, in its historical full commission judgment, headed by Justice
Venkatchaliah, former Chief Justice of India, held the systematic/planned
Ethnic Cleansing inflicted on Kashmiri Pandits by terrorists that forced them
to exit their homeland. In the ruling on June 11, 1999 stated that, “the
commission is constrained to observe that acts akin to genocide have occurred
with respect to Kashmiri Pandits.’ UN Secretary General at the 60th session on
Human Rights in Geneva on 7th April, 2004 observed, “When civilians are
deliberately targeted because they belong to a particular community, we are in
the presence of potential, if not actual genocide.” The US based non-profit, International Commission for Human
Rights and Religious freedom has called upon the Government of India and
the Government of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir to acknowledge and
recognise the 1989-1991 atrocities on Kashmiri Hindus as an act of genocide.
A PROTEST DEMONSTRATION AGAINST WANDHAMA MASSACRE
The Indian Government and the State
Government never made their stand clear on the genocide of the Hindus and the
exodus forced upon them. They did not make their stand clear on the reversal of
the genocide, which formed the precedent condition for the return of the Hindus
to their homes. In fact, the Indian Government never made any formal commitment
in respect of the return of Hindus to their homes and made no concrete
proposals for their rehabilitation during last 32 years.
Genocide of the Hindus in Kashmir
and their exile for decades has changed the geographical alignments of their
community in the province of Kashmir and destroyed their social and economic
base. The terrorist violence has obliterated the Hindu religious heritage of
Kashmir and almost effaced the Hindu cultural identity. The return of Hindus to
Kashmir can assume meaning and effect only in case the genocide is reversed.
The perpetrators of genocide punished.
Kashmiri Hindus became refugees in their
own country for more than 32 years now! No enquiry commission has been
constituted by State or Central Government so far to bring culprits to book who
are responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus, nor has
Hon’ble Supreme Court of India acted so far. The Indian people must realize
that history does not move on dotted line. It takes its own course. It does not
forget. It does not forgive.
