By Col Tej Kumar Tikoo
Issue Book Excerpt: Kashmir: Its Aborigines and their Exodus
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On Jan, 04, 1990, a local Urdu newspaper, Aftab, published a press release issued by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, asking all Pandits to leave the Valley immediately. Al Safa, anotherlocal daily repeated the warning.These warnings were followed by Kalashnikov-wielding masked Jehadis carrying outmilitary-type marches openly. Reports of killing of Kashmiri Pandits continued to pour in. Bomb explosions and sporadic firing by militants became a daily occurrence.
Explosive and inflammatory speeches being broadcast from the public address systems of the mosques became frequent. Thousands of audio cassettes, carrying similar propaganda, were played atnumerous places in the Valley, in order to instill fear into the already terrified Kashmiri Pandit community. Recalling these events, the former Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Shri M M Khajooria says, "The mischief of the summer of 1989 started with serving notice to the prominent members of the minority community to quit Kashmir.
The letter said, 'We order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed- we are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims, andis the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here'. The threatening note ended with a warning, 'If you do not obey, we will start with your children. Kashmir Liberation, Zindabad."
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They signaled the implementation of their intentions quite blatantly. M. L. Bhan of Khonmoh, Srinagar, a government employee, was killed on Jan 15, 1990. Baldev Raj Dutta, an operator in Lal chowk, Srinagar, was kidnapped on the same day. His dead bodywas found four days later, on Jan 19, 1990, at Nai Sarak, Srinagar.The body bore tell-tale marks of brutal torture.
Night of Jan, 19, 1990
The night witnessed macabre happenings, the like of which had not been witnessed by Kashmiri Pandits after the Afghan rule.Those that experiencedthe fear of that night are unlikely to forget it in their life time. For future generations, it will be a constant reminder of the brutality of Islamic radicals, who had chosen the timing very carefully. "Farooq Abdullah, whose governmenthad all but seized to exist, resigned. Jagmohan arrived during the day to take charge as the Governor of the State."2 He took over the charge of the Governor just the previous night at Jammu.He had made efforts to reach Srinagar during theprevious day, but the plane had to return to Jammu fromPir Panjal Pass, due to extremely bad weather. Though curfew was imposedto restore some semblance of order, it had little effect. The mosque pulpits continued to be used to exhort people to defy curfew and join Jehad against the Pandits, while armed cadres of JKLF marched through the streetsof the Valley, terrorizing them no end.
As the night fell, the microscopic community became panic-stricken whenthe Valley began reverberating with the war-cries of Islamists, who had stage-managed the whole event with great care;choosing its timing and the slogans to be used. A host of highly provocative, communal and threatening slogans, interspersed with martial songs, incited the Muslims to come out on the streets and break the chains of 'slavery'. These exhortations urged the faithful to give a final push to the Kafir in order to ring in the true Islamic order. These slogans were mixed with precise and unambiguous threats to Pandits.They were presented with three choices — Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive (convert to Islam, leave the place or prish). Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims poured intothe streets of the Valley, shouting 'death to India' and death to Kafirs.
These slogans, broadcast from the loud speakers of every mosque, numbering roughly 1100, exhorted the hysterical mobs to embark on Jehad. All male Muslims, including their children and the aged, wanted to be seento be participating in this Jehad.Those who had organized such a show of force in the middle of a cold winter night, had only one objective; to put the fear of death into the hearts of the already frightened Pandits. In this moment of collective hysteria, gone was the facade of secular, tolerant, cultured, peaceful and educated outlook of KashmiriMuslims, which the Indian intelligentsia and the liberal media had made them to wear for their own reasons.
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Most of the Kashmiri Muslimsbehaved as if they did not know who the Pandits were. This frenzied mass hysteriawent on till Kashmiri Pandits'despondency turned into desperation, as the night wore itself out.
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For the first time after independence of India from the British rule, Kashmiri Pandits found themselves abandoned to their fate, stranded in their own homes, encircled by rampaging mobs.Through the frenzied shouts and blood-curdling sloganeering of the assembled mobs, Pandits saw the true face ofin-tolerant and radical Islam.It represented the complete antithesis of the over-ratedethos of Kashmiriyat that was supposed to define Kashmiri ethos.
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