Mumbai: An exasperated Shakti Munshi, vice president of Jammu Kashmir Study Centre (JKSC) is at loss for words unable to fathom the apathy on the part of the government as well as the judiciary in giving a blind, deaf and dumb response to the plight of the Kashmiri Pandit’s following their mass exodus from Jammu and Kashmir in 1990. Terming it as the direct fallout of the mass scale internal genocide and ethnic cleansing, Shakti Munshi demanded that the government not only acknowledge it as genocide, that a tribunal be set up to bring justice and ensure that such a genocide should never happen again.
Speaking to thenews21.com on the occasion of the 30th anniversary (January 19, 1990) of what she argues was the seventh exodus of Kashmiri Pandits since 1389-95. Munshi states that the main aim of the demand is to seek rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandit’s in the valley.
“Give us back our rights, our lands, land for land. Government should do handholding for us to enable Kashmiri Pandit’s revive their industries, re-open, rebuild the destroyed temples, acknowledge that it was a genocide. It perfectly fits in the definition of genocide and ethnic cleansing as laid down by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). Give us gated security. There are some good natured Muslim brethren who need to break their silence. Let the perpetrators come out and apologize in public for the crimes and atrocities committed on Kashmiri Pandits”, remarked Shakti Munshi.
Referring to the Supreme Court dismissing the plea of ‘Roots in Kashmir’ to re-open 215 cases and more than 700 alleged murders of Kashmiri Pandits, she narrated how Sarla Bhat, a nurse in Soura Medical Institute was abducted, gang-raped by JKLF militants and killed on April 25, 1990. On how, one Dilip Kumar was tortured to death by hammering his dentures out, bullets pumped into him and later hanged from a tree with a note pinned to his chest warning anyone to lift his body, would be paid Rs 1 lakh. His body was later cremated by the police on May 19,1990.
On June 4, 1990, Girija Tikoo, a teacher from Bandipur was abducted, raped in a taxi by her colleagues and when she recognized their voices, she was shred to pieces by an electric saw, alive. On the eve of the Republic Day, on January 25, 1998, one of the worst massacres of Kashmiri Pandit’s happened at Wandhama in which 23 Pandits were killed by terrorists dressed up as Indian army soldiers.
The first known case of a Kashmiri Pandit being killed was of Prabhavati, a woman from Nawagari was killed on Hari Singh High Street in Srinagar on March 14, 1989. But what shook the conscience of the Kashmiri Pandit’s was the killing of Tika Lal Taploo on September 14, 1989, an advocate and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader. He was gunned down by JKLF terrorists. Later his funeral procession was stoned and terrorists forced shopkeepers to re-open their shutters as orders were issued not to mourn the death.
Nilkanth Ganjoo, a judge of the Srinagar High Court who had sentenced JKLF terrorist Maqbul Bhat to death, was shot dead by a group of three people on Hari Singh High Street in Srinagar on November 4, 1989 with a note on his body warning anyone against picking up the dead body. The next major killing was that of Lassa Kaul, Doordarshan station director at Srinagar Doordarshan on February 13, 1990.
Worst and heartless killing was that of Veer Ji Bhat, a young Junior Engineer in State Irrigation department at Shopian on May 13, 1990. Bhat who was sprayed with bullets was carried to SMHS Hospital where he survived the operation. Barely 30 minutes after the Doctors declared him to be out of danger, a man from the operation theatre declared him as dead. After the cloth was removed from his face, the relatives found the snow white face of Veer Ji Bhat, the killers had drained all the blood from his body.
The brutal killings of prominent Kashmiri Pandits spread panic and fear in the hearts and minds of the community. On the January 19, 1990 terrorists published advertisements in local dallies that called upon the Kashmiri Pandits to leave the valley immediately within two days. Munshi further disclosed “on the night of January 18-19 there was complete blackout in Srinagar, telephone lines were cut, and loudspeakers were blaring calling upon Pandits to leave. There was complete mayhem unleashed on the streets of Srinagar with the authorities and the government turning a blind eye towards it all”.
She further narrated that Kashmiri women and girls were ready to immolate themselves, set themselves on fire rather than fall prey in the hands of the terrorists, who otherwise raped them before their husbands and killed their husbands before their own eyes. The savagery was such that in some cases like Kanya Lal Peshin who was brutally gagged to death with a meter long cloth was stuffed down his throat and pins driven through his nails on the night of October 18-19, 1991.
Munshi disclosed that the ethnic cleansing and genocide did not end there, it continued even after the mass exodus of January 19, 1990. There were five terror attacks on Pandits in 2000, the worst was the Chittisinghpura massacre of 36 Sikhs on March 20 and few days later the Nadimarg massacre of Pandits on March 23, 2003. “On July 8, 2016, after the killing of terrorist Burhan Wani, terrorists attacked transit camps of Kashmiri Pandits. Posters threatening them and warning them to leave were put up. Many left their jobs and quit the valley, once again. So it is back to zero”, she added further.
An angry Munshi wants to know if these incidents, of the many, are not enough to shake the conscience of anybody, then what should? She was referring to the Supreme Court turning down the petition for reopening of the cases and trial in 2017 for 27 years delay and lack of evidence. She also dismisses the claims that the Kashmiri Pandits migrated out of their own free will in search of better jobs, but argues that they were terrorized, tortured and driven out. It was Maharashtra and late Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray who gave asylum to Pandits and educational reservations.
Despite the tonnes of evidence against the killers, terrorists, notorious terrorists like Yasin Malik, Javaid Mir, Bitta Karate and others who were responsible for the killings of more than 50 Pandit’s were released at the height of militancy in the 1990’s. So much so that designated TADA Judge N D Wani while releasing Bitta Karate for “want of alleged evidence”, commented on the total disinterest by the prosecution (government) in arguing the case.
There were more than 1,341 Kashmiri Pandit’s who were killed in the valley since 1990. Instances of worst mass killings include – Wandhama (January 25, 1998), Prankote and Dakikote in Udhampur district on April 21, 1998, Shana Thakarail village, Doda in 1998 and March 23, 2003, Nadimarg massacre near Shopian in Pulwama district. Other massacres include – Gawakadal, Handwara, Zakoora, Tengpoora and Hawl massacres of 1990, Sangrampora (1997), Prankote (1998), Kishtwar (2001), Qasim Nagar and Kaluchak massacres of 2002 and 2006 Doda massacre.
The threat’s that the terrorist issued in the 1990’s were like “we order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed”, or “If you do not obey, we will start with your children”, or “Kashmiri Pandits responsible for duress against Muslims should leave the Valley within two days”, or “we want Pakistan along with Hindu women, but without their men”, or some were even more explicit “Be one with us, run or die”, that used to be plastered on the doors of the homes of the Kashmiri Pandits.
She pointed out that even after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi generals in 1945-46, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) tracked down many Nazi generals who after World War II concealed their identity and hid in USA, Canada and in Argentina. Israel tracked down Nazi general Otto Adolf Eichmann on May 11, 1960, 15 years after the WW-II ended, arrested him from Argentina, smuggled him back to Israel, tried him and later sentenced him. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and set up by Nelson Mandela submitted its report on October 29, 1998 for crimes of Apartheid committed on Blacks since 1948.
To raise and rekindle the issue of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits, Shakti Munshi and the Jammu Kashmir Study Center (JKSC) are holding events at Arya Samaj Hall in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, across major towns and cities in India. There are similar events being held in USA, UK and elsewhere to mark the 30th anniversary of the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandit’s on January 19, 2020.
