Identifies culprits of Kashmiri Pandit Killers

 

Kashmir Files Movie

The Kashmir Files' movie has given an opportunity to the scores of Indians to know about the truth and the harsh reality about the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in 1989-90, along with making the people of India to know about the brutal genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, that had been converted up or denied for all these years People are finding it hard to accept that the movie is based on true stories when the victims of the genocide were never heard. It has shaken the false beliefs of decades of whitewashing and denials about this genocide and atrocities on Kashmiri Pandits.

For the unversed, the film is set around the time of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits during the Kashmir insurgency in 1990 The so-called intellectuals of this country with JNU base and recognition with the "Tukde-Tukde" Gang, called it a film full of untruths and as an exercise in utility. Some politicians who have lost their grace and base after 2014, when Modi came to power were equally reluctant to accept the film as a tale of genocide and atrocious configurations on Kashmiri Pandits. So is the case with the traditional dynastic politicians of Kashmir, belonging to NC and PDP or even Congress, like Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, who declared this film as a tale of false disclosures smelling that their silent role as the abettors of this criminal genocide of Kashmiri Pandits is getting exposed and surfaced on ground.

This resulted in the rubbing enough of salt on the bleeding wounds of the Kashmiri Pandits, who are the victims of this genocide and atrocious acts by the Islamic Fundamentalists working in the valley with the hidden blessings of the main line dynastic politicians. Another nail was driven in this coffin when Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently created a stir after he mocked the government for declaring The Kashmir Files tax free in several states. The politician was brutally trolled by netizens, even the film's director Vivek Agnihotri and

actor Anupam slammed Kejriwal for making such a statement. This movie also features Darshan Kumar, Chin may Mandlekar, Pallavi Joshi and Mithun Chakraborty, while Prakash Belawadi, Puneet Issar, Azul Srivastava and Mrinal Kulkarni are in supporting roles. Their classified roles in this film have exhibited the real scenes of those horrifying and crucifying events which the victims of Kashmiri Pandits passed through. This film about the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990, has done what Art is meant to create as a perpetual impact and impression about a nostalgic happening of the historical base.

 

Who does not know the style of working of Arvind Kejriwal, who is known as a cunning politician of sops, when he has achieved his bashful success through false and deceitful promises and exploitation of the lower strata of society at the cost of the development of economic, social and the general progressive development of Delhi. Delhi the national capital is in a shambles because of zero development in its infrastructural development, being the capital of a big country, which counts in portraying the prospective image of a nation. Delhi being the capital of India looks like an ordinary city with pathetic surroundings of environmental corridors like the situation of Yamuna which has become a perfect slum, after Kejriwal took over the reins of governance of Delhi. The road communication network system in Delhi, is at the same stage where Sheela Dixit left it as a monstrous chief minister of Delhi, who is to be crowned for her golden contribution of introducing the metro rail facility in Delhi. He is distributing the tax collected money amongst a section of people to extract favours from them as votes to remain in power somehow. Kejriwal is the founder preceptor of the Sheen Bagh stir which continued for months, for his vote bank politics. Some rumours came forth allegedly recently when it was suspected that Kejriwal has links with Khalistan elements, which is believed to have made his party to win elections in Punjab on a mass scale. His atrocious statements about this film is an outrage of his wicked mind which has rubbed salt on the bleeding wounds of Kashmiri Pandits both within the country and beyond the country. He has been cursed and condemned by all the civilised sections of Indian society for his outrageous remarks including the Kashmiri Pandits in one voice.. Calling it a propaganda has hurt the sentiments of all the right-thinking Hindus across the country. It has exposed the base of the Congress party and other pseudo secular political parties which are reliant on vote bank politics, driving the country to a vertical divide between the nationalists and anti-nationalists.

The film takes viewers back to 1989, when due to rising Islamic Jihad, a huge conflict erupted in Kashmir, forcing the KPS to flee from the valley. According to estimates, roughly 4,00,000 of the Kashmiri Pandits migrated between February and March 1990. Much more of them fled in the years that followed until just hardly 1,000 families remained back in the valley.

Thus arrived the period of 1989-1990, when Kashmir, the paradise of the Kashmiri Pandits became a death trap for the KPS, due to the spurt of militancy backed by Islamic fundamentalism sponsored from across the border, abetted by the local political set up. It is the time period when the militants in the valley of Kashmir were in search of prominent and selective Kashmiri Pandits, at the asking of their organised Islamic fundamentalists and groups from the valley to kill them, for making a frightening news scare and alert among other fellow Kashmiri pandits so that they run away from the valley. This ultimately resulted in the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley of Kashmir. Their first prey in this regard were Kashmiri Pandits of immense repute, writers, community elders, legal luminaries, press and media personalities, government officers/officials who were in prominent positions in the state administration or were known prominently.

Jehadi cum communal speeches from mosques were put on loud speakers meant for "Azan and Nimaz", which would say ("Yeti- Bani Pakistan, Bhatov Bhegeer the Bhatenen-San"), meaning there in that the Kashmir will become a Pakistan without male Kashmiri Pandits but including women folk of Kashmiri Pandits. The humble ethos which a noble and a common Kashmiri Muslim was possessing prior to the spurt of militancy, had got converted into contempt and hate, with an approach synonymous to vultures, amongst most of them. The dark night of January 19, 1990, shivering with cold, is remembered by all of us, as it was the worst nightmare for the Kashmiri Pandits living in the valley. Screaming from loud speakers and crowded streets was a message for KPS living in Kashmir, which said, Ralive, Talib, Neti-Galiv. (It meant that either convert to Islam or leave Kashmir and in the alternative face death). Even after about 30 years, Kashmiri Pandits shiver remembering the night which forced them into exodus and a life of exile within their own country.

On 14 September 1989, Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, who was a lawyer and a prominent leader of KPs, was murdered by the JKLF in Srinagar. Prominent lawyer Sh. Prem Nath Bhat was gunned down on 27th December-1989 in South Kashmir. Soon after Taploo's death, Pt. Nilkanth Ganjoo, an eminent judge who had sentenced Maqbul Bhat to death, was shot dead. On 29 April 1990, Sarwanand Kaul Premi, a veteran Kashmiri poet was gruesomely murdered. His young son was also killed gruesomely. Several intelligence operatives were assassinated over the course of January. On 2nd February 1990, Satish Tikoo, a young Hindu Pandit social-worker was murdered near his own house in Habba Kadal. On 13 February 1990, Lassa Kaul, Station Director of Srinagar Doordarshan, was shot dead. This is only a small tale of KPs who were killed brutally, because of being Kashmiri Pandits. Many Kashmiri Hindu women were kidnapped, raped and murdered, during this period of exodus. In March 1997, terrorists dragged out seven Kashmiri Pandits from their houses in Sangrampora village and gunned them down. In January 1998, about 23 Kashmiri Pandits, including women and children, shot in cold blood in Wandhama Village. In March 2003, about 24 Kashmiri Pandits, including infants, brutally shot dead in Nadimarg Village. More than 4, 00,000 Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley and took refuge in Jammu and elsewhere, leaving their entire properties and belongings in the valley to the mercy of militants and Jehadis. Most of them started living in the refugee camps established in Jammu Province. One can understand the agony of this exodus along with travesty of having lost everything in life, like one's property, one's belongings, agricultural lands and orchards, commercial establishments, means to earn a living honourably and above all our own culture which was unique for all of us and was very much dear to us. Most of the KPS still languish in refugee settlements of 8 x 8, even after more than three decades, More than 1500 KPs were killed by terrorists when most of them after being maimed and tortured in most inhumane ways. Over 800 KPs died due to sunstroke, snakebites in refugee camps at Jammu and Delhi. Over 8000 KP refugees died unnatural deaths while living in subhuman conditions in exile. Thousands of KPs are still living in sub-humane conditions in camps for want of better accommodation. Over 30,000 residential houses, business establishments, shops, small scale industries, were gutted by the Jehadis and others in the valley. About 145 Hindu shrines and temples were burnt by the terrorists in Kashmir. This is only a small summary about the whole story of exodus. There are other horrifying tales too, which cannot be mentioned here because of the paucity of space.

The movie which is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide begins with the episode of the year 1990 when the then CM of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah had resigned. Reportedly, the Islamization of Jammu and Kashmir had already begun in the 1980s when the government led by Sheikh Abdullah had changed the names of around 300 areas in Kashmir to Islamic names. It is since then that the Kashmiri Hindus were deliberately targeted and referred to as 'Mukhbirs', or informants of the Indian military. They were named in the hit lists of the Islamist terrorist organizations.

The film 'the Kashmir Files' revolves around the family of Pushkar Nath Pandit, a character portrayed by actor Anupam Kher, whose son gets named in the hit list and then gets killed by the terrorists, daughter in-law gets killed in the public and grandchild gets a bullet in the head. The pain of the family shown in the movie makes the audience question how can human beings be so cruel against fellow humans, in the name of religion. Here are some incidents depicted in the movie and the way they happened in reality. The movie has a scene that shows the frightened Hindu community of the Kashmir Valley following the killing of a Srinagar High Court judge in the broad daylight. This is from November 1989 when the terrorists had shotdead retired Judge Nilakanth Ganjoo in broad daylight in Maharaj Bazaar, Amira Kadal Justice Ganjoo was being watched after he had given death sentence to Maqbool Bhat, the leader of JKLF, whom he had found involved in the murder of Amar Chand, a CID Police Sub-Inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police, resident of Nadihal village of Baramulla district.

In an interview to the BBC Hard Talk almost twenty years later, JKLF leader Yasin Malik had confessed that he had killed Justice Ganjoo Malik was heard saying that the JKLF had shot Justice Nilkanth Ganjoo as he had announced the hanging of Maqbool Bhat. According to the reports, earlier in September 1989, the organisation had also shot Pandit Tika Lal Taploo who was a lawyer by profession and the President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Kashmir Chapter.

On 25 January 1990, Yasin Malik had fired 40 rounds at the Indian Air Force personnel who were waiting for their vehicle at the Rawalpora bus stand. Four Indian Air Force personnel, Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, Corporal DB Singh, Corporal Uday Shankar and Airman Azad Ahmad were killed and 10 other IAF personnel were injured. According to the reports, the shots were fired from the 2 to 3 automatic weapons and one semi-automatic pistol in presence of 1 head constable and 7 constables of the Jammu and Kashmir Police post, who did not react A clip in the Kashmir Files shows a senior journalist posed at the 'Kashmir news' justifying the brutal killing of the Kashmiri Hindus. The clip roughly says that 'the Kashmiri Pandits, though in minority, were trying to snatch the benefits of the Kashmiri Muslims and so were forced to flee from the state'.

One of the most heart-wrenching scenes of the film directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri is where a woman is force-fed rice soaked in her husband's blood. This is the recreation of a brutal murder from 1990 when terrorists had come searching for engineer BK Ganjoo, who had hidden in a rice barrel. He would have been alive today had his location not been disclosed to the terrorists by his own neighbours. He was shot dead by the terrorists who fired multiple rounds at the rice barrel allowing the blood to drip out of the container. The rice soaked in the blood was then forcefully fed to Ganjoo's wife.

What comes as a shock in the movie is the killing of a lady belonging to the Kashmiri Pandits community. She is shown given away by the jihadists to the mechanical saw machine alive, cutting her right from the middle of her body.

While the true picture about the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits has come to surface due to this film, some tangible action is expected from the present government to do in this regard. Rightly fingers are being raised that what has been done by the present government for Kashmiri Pandits' rehabilitation back in the valley so far, when it is in power for almost for the last seven years. Probably by making it tax free for the viewers there is no reply to heal the wounds of Kashmiri Pandits. Government of the day has to immediately institute a commission of enquiry, to be headed by a prominent legal luminary of the country to locate the culprits in this regard and get them punished as per the law of the land, just in the same manner as was done in the case of genocide of Sikhs in 1984. Otherwise it will rub further salt on the wounds of the Kashmiri Pandits by exposing their woeful tales, without any logical remedy and relief to them. It may otherwise appear as a political ploy of BJP to again use the sad plight of Kashmiri Pandits as an election stunt for the national elections of 2024.

History will never forgive BJP for its participation in a coalition government with PDP some time back in Jammu and Kashmir, while Kashmiri Pandits were toiling for their survival as displaced persons in their own country.

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The views expressed in the Article above are Er. P.L. Khushu personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."

Courtesy:  Er. P.L. Khushu and  Koshur Samachar 2022, April