The ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandit community is perhaps the only case of violence in the country, on which no inquiry commission or committee has ever been formed so far.
New Delhi: Union Minister Anurag Thakur has said that time has come for Kashmiri Pandits to come back to Kashmir and get their rights back. Saying that they have hope now, Thakur said they didn't deserve to go through the treatment they were subjected to.
Thirty ago on this day, over five lakh Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave the Valley after terrorists with full backing of Islamic fundamentalists in the Valley unleashed a genocidal campaign.
To mark the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, the Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora (GKPD) planned a series of events in India, the US, the UK, Canada and several other countries.
The genocide of the Kashmiri Pandit community is perhaps the only case of violence in the country, on which no inquiry commission or committee has ever been formed to investigate.
The community was the first victim of terrorism in the Valley by Pakistan-backed terror outfits in the late 1980s with tacit support from the locals. Kashmiri Pandits were targeted and many community leaders, professionals, government servants, traders and teachers, men, women and even children were killed.
It all started on January 4, 1990, when a local Urdu newspaper published a press release issued by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, asking all Kashmiri Pandits to leave the Valley immediately. Over the coming days, this warning was repeated by almost all the local newspapers.
Masked Kalashnikov wielding Jehadis carried out military-style march openly
In his book Kashmir: Its Aborigines and their Exodus Colonel, Tej K. Tikko writes that the Kashmiri Pandits were given three options by the Islamic extremists and terrorists: Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive (either convert to Islam, leave the land, or die).
The local mosques in the Valley gave highly provocative, communal and threatening slogans with radical Islam casting a dark shadow on ‘Kashmiriyat’.
Colonel (retd) Tikko writes that some of the slogans raised by the Jehadis were: “Kashmir mein agar rehna hai, Allah-ho-Akbar kahna hoga”, “Islam hamara maqsad hai, Quran hamara dastur hai, jehad hamara Rasta hai”, “Pakistan se kya Rishta? La Ilah-e- Illalah” and “Dil mein rakho Allah ka khauf; Hath mein rakho Kalashnikov” to name a few.
The community claims that over 700 members were killed while many women were raped and killed.
The genocide and subsequent migration of Kashmiri Pandits from their own land not only altered the demography of the J&K but also changed it forever. Kashmiri Pandits were the soul of J&K and with their forced removal, the newly formed Union Territory remains hollow.
Time has come for Kashmiri Pandits to return to their homeland and reclaim what rightfully belongs to them.
TIMESNOWNEWS.COM
Used here for information to others who read this blog for their educational purposes and other fellow Indians who just speak loud what is happening in Kashmir on day to day basis after amendment in Article 370 but do not speak a word for resettlement of our Kashmir Pandits who suffered for 30 years and may be more to come.Specially the bas...ds of so called human right commission and the paid media.
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