Lies, planned-genocide of kashmiri muslims and unfortunate exodus of Kasmiri Pandit

An Important thread on Pandit Exodus from kashmir: fact vs fiction

Presenting the first hand information on lies related to Kashmiri pandit exodus.

Khalid Bashir Ahmad is an author, poet and a former Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS) officer. He has served the State Administration as Director Information and Public Relations and Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, besides heading the departments of Libraries and Research, and Archives, Archaeology and Museums. His book Jhelum: The River Through My Backyard has added the Jhelum Factor to the history of Kashmir. His two works in Urdu poetry and prose have won the highest State literary award in 1984 and 2010.

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During the armed rebellion of 1989, many Kashmiris who were believed to be supporting Indian rule in Kashmir were selectively killed. Several Kashmiri Pandits were also killed, mostly on allegations of being informers of the government.

The first militant attack was on a Muslim police officer, Ali Muhammad Watali. The first militancy related civilian killing was also of a Muslim, Muhammad Yusuf Halwai, on 21 August 1989. He was an activist of National Conference.

Mir Mustafa, a former legislator, was kidnapped and killed on 21 March 1990. Professor Mushir-ul-Haq, VC of the University of Kashmir and Abdul Gani were kidnapped and killed on 6 April 1990. On 23 December 1990, senior politician Maulana Mohammad Sayeed Masoodi was gunned down.

Some Kashmiri Pandits like Tika Lal Tapiloo of BJP, Neel Kant Ganjoo - a sessions judge who ordered the hanging of Maqbool Bhat, Lassa Koul – Director of Doordarshan Srinagar and Pushkar Nath – Assistant Director in the State Information Department — were also killed.

All these killings were political rather than communal in nature. The first militancy related abduction was also of a Muslim Kashmiri woman, Rubaiya Sayeed, who was later released in exchange of five jailed rebels.

As per Anuradha Bhasin, "Many of them (Kashmiri Pandits) were shot dead for their affiliation with the intelligence agencies or their role in the government decision- making. Kashmiri Pandits occupied a prominent place in government jobs and bureaucracy."

Recently, AS Dulat was the IB chief in Kashmir during the 90s also accepted that IB, in J&K, had a fair amount of Kashmiri Pandits. “They sneaked in and out of all sorts of places and got the intelligence flowing… they rendered yeoman service to the nation."

On 1 March 1990, Almost a million Kashmiris marched towards the Headquarters of UNMOGIP to handover a memorandum seeking freedom of Kashmir from the Indian rule. The demonstration continued for days without a break but not a single Pandit or his/her property was harmed.

*_"Our community should not forget that those thousands who came out on the street did not attack or vandalize even a single Pandit home."~Vijay Bakaya [Prominent Kashmiri Pandit and Former Chief Secretary J&K]_*

Rastriya Seva Dal, after visiting Jammu & Kashmir in April 1990, wrote in a report published by the Economic and Political Weekly that-

*_"The exodus of Hindu refugees... is due to the tremendous fear created by the large rallies and angry demonstrations against the Government by the majority community. The Muslims claim amd the refugees agree that there were no communal incidents or burning or looting of houses, misbehaviour with women etc. The refugees say that they left their houses because they feared that something of this kind would happen in future."_*

"Whether the Islamic sloganeering from mosques was widespread or this happened only in selected pockets, since there is no recorded document or media reports, the truth is likely to be a causality with imagination and prejudice clouding the real picture."

*_"Whether the Islamic sloganeering from mosques was widespread or this happened only in selected pockets, since there is no recorded document or media reports, the truth is likely to be a casuality with imagination and prejudice clouding the real picture. But the moot question is: would the response be so uniform in the event of one or even all mosques of the valley echoing the Islamic slogans? Was there some underlying unheard, unsaid, understood threat that motivated the Pandits to migrate in masses within two days. Why in just two days the entire scenario changed? Why did the 'Islamic' militarization suddenly become threatening since the killings were going on for months. The media obviously has done no homework."~Anuradha Bhasin [Auditing the Mainstream Media: The Case of Jammu and Kashmir]_*

Most of the Kashmiri Pandits were unaware of the Government's plan to shift them to Jammu or other places temporarily to pave a way for a massive crackdown on the Muslims. Here is how Kashmiri Muslims helped their brethren.

*_"In the late 1989, when militancy surfaced in the valley, the Muslims in general, whether as a neighbour, friend, or a colleague asked their Pandit brothers not to leave homes and provided security for them. Many Muslims accommodated Pandit families in their homes to save them from militant attacks. There are instances when Muslim ladies, at the risk of their lives, stood at the door of Pandit houses, to stop militants from entering their houses. When in danger, they would also provide timely information to the Pandits so that they can flee to safety."~O. N. Trissal [Kashmiri Pandit : At the Crossroads of History]_*

In April 1990, Justice V. M. Tarkunde visited Kashmir and reported total communal harmony, -

*_"Hindus have received full cooperation from the local Muslims. The Muslims shared their relations amd other items of the day to day requirements with them. There os total communal harmony in Kashmir. Those people who had come out had either overreacted to the situation or had done so because of other reasons which could be winter, curfew, or closure of offices amd educational institutions. Not a single case of looting or arson of non-Muslim property had taken place".~Justice V. M. Tarkunde [Report on Kashmir, April 1990]_*

All these statements prove that there were no blood-thirsty frenzied mobs on streets or in mosques who forced the Kashmiri Pandits to migrate. How would it have been possible? Kashmir was under curfew and shoot at sight orders were implemented on 17 January itself.

*_"There is no dispute about the fact that Kashmiri Pandit community was made a scapegoat by Jagmohan, some self-styled leaders of our community and other vested interests…. The plan was to make Kashmiri Pandits migrate from the valley so that the mass uprising against occupational forces could be painted as a communal flare up... Some self-styled leaders begged the Pandits to migrate from the valley. We were told that our migration was very vital for preserving and protecting our 'Dharam' and the unity of India. We were told our migration would pave the way for realizing the dream of 'Akhand Bharat... We were fooled and we were more than wiling to become fools. "~A Kashmiri Pandit to Human Roghts Watch [Report : Kashmir Under Siege]_*

*_"Pandits were assured by the government that once the proposed massacre of Muslims in Kashmir was completed and the movement curbed, they would be sent back to the valley. My community now understands that it was a very crude way of painting the mass uprising against India as nothing but a communal flare up. The Indian government tried to fool the world by depicting the uprising as a handiwork of Muslim Fundamentalists who had turned against non-Muslims and had thrown them out of their homes. I know my community has lost the affection, love, respect and goodwill of Kashmiri Muslims for having betrayed them. I feel ashamed to admit that my community has stabbed the Muslims in the back. This all happened at the instance of Jagmohan. Some self-styled Pandit leaders exploited the situation and Pandits became refugees in their own land."~A Kashmiri Pandit, K. L. Koul in the Daily Alsafa [18/9/1990]_*

In this letter below, Rajnath Turki, a Kashmiri Pandit writes to his friend Mushtaq Wani about how the security forces at Karan Nagar forced him to leave.

*_Dear Mushtaq,_*
*_20/12/1990_*
*_Hope by God's grace everybody is fine there. I tried to write you earlier but due to ill health had to postpone it. Anyhow how is everybody there. I came here in the end July. That too when security people at Karan Nagar forced us to leave......._*

In a letter published in the Daily Alsafa on 18 September 1990, K.L. Koul also wrote - _"In the first week of February 1990, a word was sent to the members of the Pandit community in Kashmir and they were asked to migrate to safer places. This message from Jagmohan was conveyed through some self-styled Pandit leaders. Pandits were told that the government had plans of killing about one lakh Muslim, particularly the youth, in order to crush the uprising. Pandits were assured that they would be looked after well, that they would be provided with free ration, free releif, jobs, and free accommodation. Pandits were assured that once the Muslims were massacred they would be sent back. This is how Pandits left."_

Kashmiri Pandits faced overwhelming problems in Jammu and continue to do so. The weather was hot, tents were crowded, washrooms were ill-equipped. Young Pandit girls were subjected to stalking on daily basis. Kashmiri Pandits were facing an identity and cultural crisis.

*_"We were not welcomed by Hindu Dogras, our co-religionists in Jammu who felt that we will compete with them for jobs and business on the one hand, and on the other hand we never felt close to them culturally as we used to feel for Kashmiri Muslims... The respect which Kashmiri Muslims used to give us was a distant dream in Jammu"~A migrant Kashmiri Pandit in Jammu, Bhan to Human Rights Watch_*

As per some Indian Media channels and Kashmiri Pandit organizations, 3,50,000 to 7,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to migrate from Jammu & Kashmir but according to the Census of 1981 the total population of Hindus (including non- Kashmiris) was 124,078.

Given the decade growth of the community from 1971 to 1981 as 6.75% their population in 1991 would have been around 132,000. If we subtract at least 8,000 Kashmiri Pandits who didn’t leave the valley, we get almost 124,000 Kashmiri Pandits who migrated.

Following the migration, BJP came up with a list of 55 allegedly destroyed temples in Kashmir. On the day of the demolition of Babri Masjid (6 December 1992), Lal Krishna Advani claimed 55 temples had been destroyed in #Kashmir. He lied.

*_"Following the Pandit migration, BJP came up with a list of 55 allegedly destroyed temples in Kashmir. On the day of demolition of Babri Masjid (6 December 1992), Lal Krishna Advani said : "Everybody wants to defend Babri Masjid, none of them have spoken a word of criticism about the 55 temples destroyed in Kashmir." After being questioned over it, he reduced the number to 40 in another rally. Journalist Harinder Baweja busted this myth with photographic evidence and revealed that the BJP had misled people to score political points. Harinder Baweja visited 23 temples from the list provided by the BJP and found all of them safe and functioning. These temples, according to BJP, according to BJP, had been burnt and demolished.

One pujari of Ganpatyar Temple, which the BJP claimed had been destroyed said that Puja had continued in the 200-year-old Hanuman temple.
In another instance, a Kashmiri Pandit, Maheshwar Nath told Baweja: " Gita ki kasam, this temple has never been touched." When Advani was confronted on this issue and accused of lying and distorting facts, he denied any such list existed.

Journalist Harinder Baweja had busted this myth with photographic evidence and revealed that the BJP had misled people to score political points. In many cases, Muslims have been taking care of temples since decades.

Many non-Kashmiri Pujaris came from India and took over the temples here. These Pujaris started selling away various properties that the temples owned. In one case three Pujaris looked over 375 Kanals of temple land which they had rented to non-state-subjects, violating the Article 370.

In another case, a lease holder, Kuldeep Narayan Jaggi sold the rented land illegally for 2.5 Crore. Even an ancient idol from the temple is missing. Some Kashmiri Pandits say assets worth Rs 500 Crore are already sold out.