Dear Rohit Kaul Sahib adab
Thank you for your email and comments.
You wrote:
‘I want to ask Dr. Shabir one question. He left JKLF Yasin group in 2004. All Kashmiri Pandits had left the Valley by then. A large number were killed in the Valley. It was jklf gun. Hizb came in very late.’
Reply
Rohit Sahib you have to understand the situation of that time. At that time there was no mass communication and no access to information. Today as a result of advancement in information technology things are known instantly by email, text message, youtube or TV news bulletins.
These facilities were not available at that time. Our source of information was Amanullah Khan who was Chair at that time. We sincerely believed everything what our Chair of the time told us, but we didn’t know that his source of information were hawaldaars and inspectors of ISI. So we were not aware of the true situation as we were based in England.
As a result of Amanullah Khan’s wrong policies and unconstitutional measures we challenged him in 1992/93, and were left with no option but to establish our own JKLF. We established our own contacts and came to know about wrong doings of some JKLF militants. After 1994 we have time and again condemned those wrongs and wrote in support of Kashmiri Pandits and demanded their return to their homes with respect and dignity.
I can show you many statements and articles written in mid 1990s onwards, but ‘fake men’ on Kashnet will get activated and say that I am ‘seeking publicity’. It was at that time the Pakistani agencies and their agents started making allegations against me.
In fact in some of the JKLF meetings in England I was accused of being ‘too pro Pundits’ and easily influenced by the Indian propaganda.
Just for records sake we parted with Yasin Malik in 2001 and not in 2004.
You wrote:
‘If ISI support for jklf of militancy was ok, what kind of nationalist the Doctor is? He has turned a secular overnight. It is hard to believe. Leopard can't change his spots.’
Reply
I have not turned secular over night. I have a track record of promoting secular and liberal politics. My first book on history and politics of Kashmir (Kashmir Ki Quomi Azadi and Pakistan) was published in 1989, in which I have promoted liberal and democratic politics. In all my books, booklets and articles I have spoken against extremism and advanced liberal and secular politics.
The fact that due to lack of information I could not write against the plight of the Pandits at that particular time doesn’t make me a less secular. Also the fact that if some people have not read any of my books doesn’t make me a ‘fanatic’ or non secular. It is not writer’s responsibility to make sure that everyone reads his books. Some times you can give a book to some one but you can’t make him read or understand what you want him to understand. There is old saying, you can buy a bed but not sleep.
You wrote
It makes 14 years from 1990 to 2004. jklf was paid by ISI for militancy and politics. Shabir Choudhry was JKLF diplomatic spokesperson. Who was looking after his kitchen for 14 years. Who was looking after the kitchen of JKLF people in Islamabad?
Reply
I am living in England since 1966, and even worked during my university days. In England you don’t need support of ISI or any other agency to look after your kitchen. If people don’t work still they are paid enough to live comfortably, especially if you have children and a loan on house, as you get Housing Benefit as well.
So I can assure you that I looked after my own kitchen. And if it is not taken as a show off, I can tell you that many kitchens in AJK and Pakistan are looked after by regular donations given by me.
As for the Kitchens of those JKLF people who were in AJK and in Pakistan are concerned, I suppose the local JKLF people looked after their own kitchens, and those who came from the other side they were looked after by those who invited them and trained them.
You wrote
He has played a role in the crime against Pandits and many Muslims. JKLF forced people to put advertrisements in local press announcing their dissociation from NC, Congress, PDP and Communist Party.
Reply
No Rohit Sahib, I have no role in any crime, either against Pandits or Muslims. If you are a member of the Congress or a BJP and some members of these parties go and kill innocent Muslims in Gujrat or some Christians else where does it mean you are also a criminal just because you are in the same party?
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19 years to the 19th day of 1990: Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits
- By Aditya Raj Kaul
Visit the Link - http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com/2009/01/19-years-to-19th-day-of-1990-exodus-of.html
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
What hours, O what black hours we have spent…
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
19th January 1990. Kashmir was breathing still; Kashmiri Pandits lay hidden like frightened pigeons in their own nest. Today on behalf of my fellow brothers and sisters, I wish to revisit the pain of my separation from my own home 19 years ago, when the cruel hands of Allah-Wallahs butchered members of my community for being idol worshipers, for rejecting the call for unholy jihad and for siding with their own nation India. The Islamic murderers played dire warnings from their Mosques which pierced each nerve of anybody who held a Hindu name. As the sun turned pale, exhortations became louder, and three taped slogans repeatedly played their terror: 'Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai' (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah is great); 'Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa' (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); 'Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san' (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).
The roots of this unparalleled tragedy are immersed in 1986 with a well-planned strategy to execute Hindus from the valley. By 1990, the population saw their age old temples turned to ruins and lives at risk. As Pakistan stepped up their campaign against India, new Islamic terror outfits suddenly mushroomed in the state. As Jamait-e-Islami financed all madarsas to poison them against the minority Hindus and India, Pakistan further dictated youth to launch Jihad against India. A terror strike so meticulously planned that its unprecedented display was terrifying. As camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) began to provide training to innumerable Muslim men, India witnessed the emergence of the bloodiest Kalashnikov culture in the valley. The victims- innocent and non-violent minority- the Kashmiri Pandits.
The Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, abandoned his responsibilities and the administration, the state and people lay like cattle on an open road. The hidden fact of rigged elections in 1987 had by then become a lucid statement. Today 22 years later, Omar Abdullah takes position of the same majestic throne, though I wonder how efficiently he would carry forward the state of affairs. Will he like his father ruin the backbone of the state and leave the minority Hindus helpless as always, or will he rise above politics, religion to create space for Pandits in their valley? The unanswered question lingers on.
When Farooq Abdullah escaped underground, Jagmohan took reigns as the governor of the state. Though not very competent to handle an already ruined socio-political situation, he as a mark of remarkable leadership helped Kashmiri Pandits receive safe shelter. Jagmohan charted out an exceptional strategy to counter Islamic fanatics and also opened his Durbar (Office) to public irrespective of time. He visited families of the martyred Hindus. About one such meeting with the family of Satish Tickoo, murdered by communal JKLF goon Bitta Karate , he wrote an outstanding excerpt in his book, 'My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir'- "In Habba-Kadal, except for the long row of our vehicles, nothing was seen on the streets. The afternoon rain appeared to have soaked the houses with depression. The few windows that were open were without even the usual dim light. The dark clouds overhead completed the picture of gloom… The house of Tickoo was like a shattered nest. Everything lay scattered. The grim atmosphere around told the tale more vividly..."
He further wrote, "As I was about to leave, Satish's uncle who was a bit vociferous and assertive, insisted that I should go upstairs and see the family deity. I agreed. A calm majestic figure was soon visible. It looked so imposing even in the darkness… With tears in their eyes, the family members thanked me and the accompanying officers. We were all moved over the sad plight of the family".
However one excerpt that mirrored my anxiety of 19 years was composed in words by Jagmohan, "Looking at the compact and enmeshed houses, and the by-lanes which acted like fine threads of a well-knit fabric, I wondered how these families, who had all their Gods and Goddesses here, and had deep roots in the soil, could leave and settle in distant and unfamiliar lands. Sometimes life is unaccountably cruel. And we human beings have, perhaps, no option but to suffer – suffer in silence, or wail".
Satish Tickoo was not the lone martyr who fell to the bullets of so-called revolutionaries. Tika lal Taploo, Nilkanth Ganjoo, Sarla Bhat, and countless others followed the target list of JKLF and other Islamic Terror outfits backed by Pakistan financially, psychologically and politically. An absent government, collapsed administration, and a petrified community saw despondency set in. As the moonlight of January 19, 1990 wore itself out, despondency gave way to desperation. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley decided to take an agonizing decision, to flee their homeland and save their lives and religion from rabid Jihadis…
…Thus took place a 20th century Exodus.
Pandits left the valley, with an approximate statistics of more than three lakh and fifty thousand. Almost a thousand Pandit men, women and children were slaughtered to death in 1990 alone by these revolutionaries of Islam. Surprisingly on paper, official figures clogged at only 209 killed! Alas! Soon the J&K government shall disown the whole Pandit community as aborigines of Kashmir.
In this 19th year, a few hundred frightened Pandits still live scattered across the valley in far flung areas hoping against hope for peace and their brethren to step on the snow once again.
This 19th year embarks upon a history of bullets to makeshift camps in Jammu with torturous summer heat to snake and scorpion bites and finally dreadful diseases. Seven camps in Jammu are an uninhabitable asylum for around 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits. The only perceptible change is an upgradation of some to permanent structures.
My heart bleeds when I watch communal turned pseudo-secular Kashmiri separatists grab the headlines while the plight of the Pandits remains a non-issue. It isn't the so-called Azaadi that the people of Kashmir desire. They long for an immediate crackdown on terrorists, an end to the separatist elements and those unbearable puppets in the Valley- all for normalcy to return. Though sidelined for now, the political patronage they enjoy could soon take the voices from the Hurriyat and JKLF spreading propaganda of terror and hatred to the frontlines of politics.
An entire community uprooted from the land of their ancestors is today struggling for its identity. The weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu and Kashmir's destiny. A part of India's cultural heritage is destroyed; a chapter of India's civilization has been erased. And, our jhola-wallah brigade of 'secular' activists unabashedly turns their back to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. To them I believe, 'Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror' is a truth perhaps too harsh to accept. Thereby hangs a tragic tale that is completely wiped out from public memory.
I am reminded of a stanza by a Jewish poet: '...without identity in a street nameless to me, I am a stranger: I am longings, I am fears. I am child longing to belong to his lost childhood and not be outside the present, always withdrawn, apart...'
I'm as old as the terrorism in the Valley. In these 19 years, the only time I felt the breeze of my land was through the closed windows of my airplane. She beckons me and I am too desperate now to grab its serene quilt. My mother nature has summoned me, and I shall answer her call soon, very soon.
Till then, in this 19th year of exile like the unanswered questions of our human rights …my struggle for existence also continues.
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