Er P L Khushu
Kashmiri Pandits’ killings are unabated and continuous in the valley of Kashmir with more ferocity and tyranny. Two Kashmiri Pandit brothers were shot at by terrorist in an orchard, in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir recently, killing one amongst them and severely injuring the other one. They have joined the big column of the other Kashmir Pandits martyrs who have been killed on the soil of Kashmir for being Indians and trying to resettle back in Kashmir after the mass genocide and exodus of KPs from Kashmir in 1990. Some other names to quote briefly in this regard are brutal killing of a young Kashmiri Pandit Rahul Bhat, working in office of Tehsildar Chaddora, in the district Budgam of Kashmir. He was shot dead inside the main office premises of the Tehsil Office at Chaddora, district Budgam, Kashmir on May 13, 2022, in broad day-light. The lured terrorists barged into the Tehsil office Chadoora and shot from a close-range Rahul Bhat, working under Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package (PMRP), as a clerk. Another brutal killing of such a nature was of a Kashmiri Pandit Rakesh Pandita, the President of Municipal Committee Tral, which was done by terrorists at Tral Kashmir, on 2nd June-2021, after another gruesome killing of one Ajay Pandita, and a Sarpanch at Larkipora, Anantnag, who were shot dead by unidentified terrorists at Lokbawan in Anantnag on June 8. Terrorists killed a well-known medico and eminent person Makan Lal Bindroo, whose family has set up a medical shop in the Valley way back in 1947 and used to serve all irrespective of caste or religion. He was gunned down at his shop in high-security zone of Iqbal Park area. On October 7, two teachers, Deepak Chand, a Kashmiri Pandit and Satinder Kour, a Sikh woman, fell to bullets of terrorists. This spate of killings shows that terror groups are out to destabilize the region once again targeting people hailing from vulnerable minorities like Kashmiri Pandits (KPs). Their fault is why to continue living in Kashmir despite terrorists’ dictates that the land of Kashmir is not for Kashmiri Pandits. This call of theirs is abetted silently and under the carpet, by the so called Kashmiri political leaders of inheritance clan presuming themselves as Nawabs of Kashmir by birth and inheritance. Their parochial round the clock cynical utterance is that Kashmir is for Kashmiris, without specifying who Kashmiri is in its originality. Kashmiri Pandit is not in their folder of records for their exhibition to terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists, particularly those having allegiance to ISI-base of Pakistan, under the fear of their gun. All such hypocrite politicians should know that most of them are Kashmiri Pandits by gene. History is privy to it when of late as 1975, when a biography of a veteran political leader of Kashmir surfaced in Kashmir, it is frankly got mentioned by him in that biography that his forefathers were Kashmiri’s. Even one name of Pt Raghav Kaul is mentioned as one of his ancestors. So, such politicians should shun the path of their inner hate being expressed by them out of the fear of the gun, as also for local political favors, for Kashmiri Pandits rehabilitation plan back in Kashmir. KPs killings in Kashmir are not only linked to the terrorists’ acts only, which have a base in Pakistan. It is the local abetment by the different Muslim body affirmations, different Muslim rank classifications, which have been allowed to grow in Kashmir behind the screen of Islamic terror, after the militancy gave birth in Kashmir prelude to the mass rigging in the general elections of 1987 in Kashmir, who are equally responsible for the killings of KPs in Kashmir in the name of making Kashmir solely a place of Kashmiri Muslims. Unfortunately, these pseudo secular political leaders of Kashmir who ruled Kashmir for decades as their colony fell a prey to these fundamentalists in creating an atmosphere of terror and mass murders of KPs in Kashmir.
The so called dynastic political clans as mentioned above, who ruled the Kashmir for generations are now on barren roads, thus grappling to re-exist in Kashmir by hook or by crook, have become the silent co-conspirators in the hate mongering euphoria of Pan-Islamic elements in Kashmir who are deadly against the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits back in Kashmir after their mass genocide and forced exodus by these elements. It is their innate expression of hate for Kashmiri Pandits, being expressed by them in refusing to accept their rehabilitation back in Kashmir in clusters under a proper security cover in safe zone helmets. This silent act of theirs is adding enough of ammunition to the opportune pan-Islamic terror groups to kill Kashmiri Pandits wherever they find one in isolation. They are trying to show their mandate of command over the Muslim masses of Kashmir by linking together under different names like Gupkar Alliance, which is mockingly known now as Gupkar Gang. Once bitten twice shy is a famous proverb, which applies to these local clan of dynastic politicians in their own web. They should have learnt from it. Nobody bothered among the masses of Kashmir about these leaders, when they were cooling their heels in confinements, when they were put under preventive detention after the annulment of article 370 and 35 A. So their falsifying image of being the leaders of the masses of Kashmir and thus speaking for Kashmiri Muslims only is a big harassing bottleneck in proper rehabilitation of Kashmir Pandits back in Kashmir. In the process, if some Kashmiri Pandit ventures to go to Kashmir for living or working there or is already there, he or she become an easy duck for the terrorists and their guns, attaining martyrdom for the KPs Biradhari. Before classifying and spotting the responsible terrorists for such acts, these political leaders as abettors of the killings of Kashmiri Pandits should be appropriately booked under law and dealt accordingly. Probably they will know the ground and its dust for their misbehavior towards Kashmiri Pandits, who are languishing in exile after mass genocide and forced exodus in 1990. It is now the 32nd year of their forced exodus and exile. It is now the 32nd year of their uprooting from their nests of centuries and unforgettable legacies. It is now the 32nd year of their conspicuous neglect and indifferent treatment by the authorities in power. It now the 32nd year of the result of the willful silence and conspicuous indirect abatement of the dynastic rulers of Kashmir with the Islamic fundamentalists who made us to face murders, rape, burning of our houses, looting of our properties, defacing our archives of temples and religious places, usurping of our official positions and business establishments with the final aim of making us to flee naked and empty handed from the soil of our birth the ‘Kashmir”. Our tales of doom and turmoil due to our forced displacements are now becoming histories of the past, as there is no one who is sincerely bothered to listen to our tales of destruction and devastation. Probably we are now getting added to the age old historical events and pages, when Kashmiri Pandits have been massacred, forced to get converted, or flee from Kashmir during certain tyrannical Islamic rules. Is it the pseudo secularism of congress and other pseudo secular political parties of Jammu and Kashmir, which is responsible for our present condition of being refugees in our own country? Or is it the non tag of our vote bank value which is responsible for our conditions. The nation at large shall have to reply it, as it is a visible issue of human rights violation of disastrous consequences for the KPs. Where is ‘Hindutva’ about us? Do we not belong to the big race of the Hindus of this great ‘Bharat’. It is now very much unfortunate for us to seek refuge under this cover of Hinduism as the enormous and enough drum beating of the secular credentials of the nations commitment to the Constitution has failed to protect us from our extinction from the mini map of Kashmir and the bigger map of our great India. We are shrinking in numbers. It is a million dollar question. After all Kashmir is a part of our blood and flesh, why to refuse it to us. Let the nation as a whole now rise to the occasion and remind the governance of the day to perform their fundamental duty of rehabilitating Kashmiri Pandits back to their lost and deprived homes and hearths in Kashmir. They are the aboriginals of Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits are reminded of their Kashmir which was known as ‘Paradise on Earth’, full of Sufi cult and an abode of tolerance and unparalleled brotherhood. This all broke in one night, the night of 19th January-1990. This paradise of the KPs became a death trap for them due to the spurt of militancy backed by Islamic fundamentalism sponsored across the border, when each one of them were caught unawares for no fault of theirs. The dark night of January 19, 1990, shivering with cold, is remembered by all of them, 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, Tsaliv, Neti-Galiv. (It meant that either convert to Islam or leave Kashmir and in the alternative face death). Even after about 31 years, Kashmiri Pandits shiver remembering the night which forced them into exodus and a life of exile within their own country. Jehadi cum communal speeches from mosques were put on loud speakers meant for ‘Azan & 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 prominent prey in this regard among Kashmiri Pandits were the persons of immense repute, writers, community elders, legal luminaries, press and media personalities, government officers/officials who were on prominent positions in the state administration or were known prominently. Similarly the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package (PMRP) for the KPs has become a death trap for so many KP employees. The point is to make Kashmir an Islamic hyperbole with the sole aim to ensure that no one other than a fanatic Muslim lives there. Such an unholy epic has its seeds in Pakistan which want that Kashmir must be non-Muslim free, to further its anti-India activities in Kashmir. The only solution under the circumstances to this problem is to create a ‘separate homeland’ for the KPs, with in Kashmir, having a status of ‘Union Territory’. This has to be stepped up by creating para-military wings within this home land and recruiting mostly Kashmiri Pandit youth in such para-military wings, by giving them proper military trainings, so that they can guard this home land and KPs living in such a home land. This will mean providing of jobs to the unemployed Kashmiri Pandit youth as well. Such a call is not any political proposition or any such proposal which vitiates the fundamentals of communal harmony, but the only strategic solution to the present scenario of the new terror regime adopted by Pakistan for Kashmir with some local support. It is in fact the only way to ensure the return of the KPs to their ‘homeland’ securing their return with safety and dignity, so that they may not become easy ducks and fodder for the pan Islamic terrorists again. Government of India has to keep it in mind that no solution will be perpetual for Jammu & Kashmir unless the Kashmiri Pandits do not get their due which is a ‘Home Land’ for them within Kashmir, their mother land, with full security. It is their fundamental right and fundamental demand. A tangible space has to be carved within the Kashmir valley, in between the ranges of south Kashmir and the north Kashmir, for the creation of the ‘homeland’ for the rehabilitation of the KPs, which has to be given a status of the Union Territory, within the Union of India.
(The author is a Chartered Consultant Civil Engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his motherland – Jammu & Kashmir).
