. It’s an unpardonable crime which has been committed by India. We believe the only honorable solution is the occupation has to end and for the perpetrators of the crimes committed here to be punished. There cannot be any other redress. There cannot be reconciliation based on forgiveness, based on forgetfulness. We believe forgetfulness would be another crime committed by Kashmiris on themselves, if they forget what has happened to them by theIndian state. ONE OF the issues often brought up by India is the treatment of KashmiriPandits, the Hindus, who left. Numbers of them were killed, others lost their homes. THE KASHMIRI Pandit minority, which left in 1990, is an important topic for the Indian government to constantlyuse against us.But Kashmiris believe that they were not forced out.They left because of theirown insecurity. Kashmiri Pandits are a religious minority but also a part of the political minority here, which believed in complete integration andaccession to India. They were seen as supporters of India. So they felt insecure. When the armed movement erupted, because of that insecurity and because ofthe fear which was created in their minds by the then government, they left Kashmir, thinking that in a few months the situation would be fine and they would return. So they didnot leave forever then. They left because they wanted to return in three, four months, thinking that the army and the police and the government would take care of these Kashmiris who have been, according to them, indoctrinated by Pakistanis and have gonemad. “They will be treated soon and we will return.” I don’t know what this “treated soon” would mean, but these were the words they used then. During that time, most of the Kashmiri Pandits whowere killed were killed for political reasons. For example, Tikla Taplu, the J and K president of the BJP, the leading Hindutvaparty in India, was killed.So was the chief of the televisioncenter here, who happened to be a Kashmiri Pandit. Another person killed was Neelkant Ganjoo. He was the judge who in 1984 gave the death sentence to Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri leader. So these were people who were killed not because they were Kashmiri Pandits but because they were collaborating with the Indian state. There were many more collaborators who were Muslim and were killed by the militants. The number of Kashmiri Pandits who have been killed since 1989 to date—the officialfigure is 209—andthey call it a genocide. We unequivocally condemn all killings of political activists, of minority groups, and they should stop now.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 15:44:16 +0000
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