1. Are the Woes of Kashmiri Muslims under present circumstances are in any sense more than those of Kashmiri Hindu-Sikh-Jain-Buddhist suffering since independence till date & continue to suffer till further? i a. It was announced on loud speakers from Mosques ordering that Kashmiri Hindu-Sikh-Jain-Buddhist males must leave Kashmir leaving their females for Muslims in Kashmir! b. In early 1990, local Urdu newspapers Aftab and Al Safa called upon Kashmiris to wage jihad against India and ordered the expulsion of all Hindus choosing to remain in Kashmir. In the following days masked men ran in the streets with AK-47 shooting to kill Hindus who would not leave. Notices were placed on the houses of all Hindus, telling them to leave within 24 hours or die. ii. Our people were killed. I saw a girl tortured with cigarette butts. Another man had his eyes pulled out and his body hung on a tree. The armed separatists used a chainsaw to cut our bodies into pieces. It wasnt just the killing but the way they tortured and killed. - A crying old Kashmiri Hindu in refugee camps of Jammu told BBC news reporter. iii. Hindu women suffered heinous torture in Kashmir. In the words of one of the best-known Indian psychoanalysts Sudhir Kakar, slogans of Long Live Pakistan were carved with red-hot iron rods on the thighs of [the] Hindu daughters. iv a. The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front have been accused of ethnic cleansing by using murder, arson and rape as a weapon of war to drive out hundreds of thousands of Pandits from the region. b. Hindu civilians have been subjected to rape and murder perpetrated by members of terrorist organisations like the JKLF and the Hezb-ul Mujahidin and about a hundred such groups. These abuses have forced over three hundred thousand Hindus to leave the Kashmir valley, suffering internal displacement to refugee camps in Jammu and New Delhi. v. Exodus from Kashmir (1985–1995): The Kashmiri Pandits had stably constituted approximately 14 to 15 per cent of the population of the valley during Dogra rule (1846–1947). 20 per cent of them had left the Kashmir valley as a consequence of the 1948 Muslim riots and 1950 land reforms, By 1981 the Pandit population amounted to 5 per cent of the total. They began to leave in much greater numbers in the 1990s. According to a number of authors, approximately 100,000 of the total Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley during that decade. Other authors have suggested a higher figure for the exodus, ranging from the entire population of over 150,000, to 190,000 of a total Pandit population of 200,000, to a number as high as 350,000. The nature of planned exodus has remain controversial, with the involvement of then Governor Jagmohan in organizing a clandestine exodus been a subject of controversy. Many of the refugee Kashmiri Pandits have been living in abject conditions in refugee camps of Jammu. The government has reported on the terrorist threats to Pandits still living in the Kashmir region. In 2010, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir noted that 808 Pandit families, comprising 3,445 people, were still living in the Valley and that financial and other incentives put in place to encourage others to return there had been unsuccessful. 219 members of the community had been killed in the region between 1989 and 2004 but none thereafter. The exiled community had hoped to return after the situation improved. They have not done so because the situation in the Valley remains unstable and they fear a risk to their lives. vi. Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits: See also: History of Kashmiri Pandits In the Kashmir region, approximately 300 Kashmiri Pandits were killed between September 1989 to 1990 in various incidents. In early 1990, local Urdu newspapers Aftab and Al Safa called upon Kashmiris to wage jihad against India and ordered the expulsion of all Hindus choosing to remain in Kashmir. In the following days masked men ran in the streets with AK-47 shooting to kill Hindus who would not leave. Notices were placed on the houses of all Hindus, telling them to leave within 24 hours or die. Since March 1990, estimates of between 250,000 to 300,000 pandits have migrated outside Kashmir[citation needed] due to persecution by Islamic fundamentalists in the largest case of ethnic cleansing since the partition of India. The proportion of Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley has declined from about 15% in 1947 to, by some estimates, less than 0.1% since the insurgency in Kashmir took on a religious and sectarian flavor. Many Kashmiri Pandits have been killed by Islamist militants in incidents such as the Wandhama massacre and the 2000 Amarnath pilgrimage massacre. The incidents of massacring and forced eviction have been termed ethnic cleansing by some observers. Suicides: According to a report, 17,000 people, mostly women, have committed suicide. According to a study by the Medecins Sans Frontieres, “Women in Kashmir have suffered enormously since the separatist struggle became violent in 1989–90. Like the women in other conflict zones, they have been raped, tortured, maimed and killed. 2. It was announced on loud speakers from Mosques ordering that Kashmiri Hindu-Sikh-Jain-Buddhist males must leave Kashmir leaving their females for Muslims in Kashmir! 3. Where was State Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir, Congress ruled Central Govt. of India, Indian Secular Politicians - Public - Media at the time of Kashmiri Hindu-Sikh-Jain-Buddhist Exodus from the State J & K due to ethnic cleaning by the same Kashmiri Muslim Public & J & K State Govt. - with all others as silent spectators? 4. Ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs: The Hindu Kashmiri Pandits, a small but prominent group, who had stably constituted approximately 4 to 5 per cent of the population of the Kashmir valley during Dogra rule (1846–1947), and 20 per cent of whom had left the Kashmir valley by 1950, began to leave in much greater numbers in the 1990s. According to a number of authors, approximately 100,000 of the total Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley during that decade. Other authors have suggested a higher figure for the exodus, ranging from the entire population of over 150,000, to 190,000 of a total Pandit population of 200,000, to a number as high as 253,000. The US government has reported on the terrorist threat to Pandits still living in the Kashmir region. Hindu women suffered heinous torture in Kashmir. In the words of one of the best-known Indian psychoanalysts Sudhir Kakar, slogans of Long Live Pakistan were carved with red-hot iron rods on the thighs of [the] Hindu daughters During the eruption of armed rebellion the Islamic insurgency has claimed to have specifically targeted the Pandits and violated their human rights. Reports by Indian government state 219 Kashmiri pandits were killed and around 140,000 migrated due to militancy while over 3000 stayed in the valley. The local organisation of pandits in Kashmir, Kashmir Pandit Sangharsh Samiti claimed that 399 Kashmiri Pandit were killed by insurgents. Our people were killed. I saw a girl tortured with cigarette butts. Another man had his eyes pulled out and his body hung on a tree. The armed separatists used a chainsaw to cut our bodies into pieces. It wasnt just the killing but the way they tortured and killed. - A crying old Kashmiri Hindu in refugee camps of Jammu told BBC news reporter. The violence was condemned and labelled as ethnic cleansing in a 2006 resolution passed by the United States Congress. It stated that the Islamic terrorists infiltrated the region in 1989 and began an ethnic cleansing campaign to convert Kashmir to a Muslim state. According to the same, since then nearly 400,000 Pandits were either murdered or forced to leave their ancestral homes. According to Hindu American Foundation report, the rights and religious freedom of Kashmiri Hindus have been severely curtailed since 1989, when there was an organised and systematic campaign by Islamist militants to cleanse Hindus from Kashmir. Less than 4,000 Kashmiri Hindus remain in the valley, reportedly living with daily threats of violence and terrorism. The CIA has reported nearly 506,000 people, about half of which are Pandit Hindus are displaced due to the insurgency.The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reports that there are roughly 1.5 million refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir, bulk of whom arrived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Pakistan after the situation on the Indian side worsened in 1989 insurgency. Post-1989, Kashmiri Pandits and other minority groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been targets of ethnic cleansing by Jihadi elements which India alleges and blames on the Inter-Services Intelligence.The Kashmiri Pandits, a community of Hindu Brahmins, then comprising 5% of the population of the state were the primary targets of Islamic militants, who also sought to also eliminate Kashmirs record of 5000 years of Hindu Sanskrit culture and scholarship as well as the tolerant indigenous multiculturalism referred to as Kashmiriat. As many as 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits fled the state and ethnic violence is considered to have killed 30,000 people.[90] Muslim paramilitaries raped, tortured and killed thousands of Kashmiri Pandits, burnt their temples, idols and holy books. According to Bhatt a United Nations adviser, the houses of Kashmir Pandits have been burnt, many killed, and that there has been an almost total ethnic cleansing of Kashmir Pandits from Kashmir by fundamentalist forces of terrorism organised and supported from Pakistan. Other minorities such as Kashmiri Sikhs were also targeted. According to Chitkara the killing of Sikhs near Anantnag in 2001, by the Jehadis was aimed at ethnic cleansing. Hindus have migrated from most of the Kashmir valley, Sikhs who form a very small percentage could be forced to migrate in the wake of such killings. The Lashkar-e-Taiba is blamed for the Chittisinghpura massacre, which killed 37 Siks at the time of Clinton‘s visit to India. rediff/news/report/jk-flood-homeless-hungry-and-thirsty-woes-continue-for-kashmirs-locals-pix/20140910.htm
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:31:54 +0000