Adhithya Sakthivel

Drama Thriller Others

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Adhithya Sakthivel

Drama Thriller Others

THE KASHMIR DIARIES

THE KASHMIR DIARIES

20 mins
270




Note: This story is based on 1990 Kashmir Pandits genocide and Author’s fiction. It’s based on several facts and informations that I collected from various research, that I had done with some of my Kashmir friends in Coimbatore, who told me about their pains and sufferings during the period of genocide.


DISCLAIMER: This story is not intended to hurt the feelings of any religious people. This is written in the mindset of pure social awareness.


2022:


KASHMIR:


Vikash Krish Pandit, his younger brother Arjun Pandit and his girlfriend Anjali Pandit comes to Kashmir after so many long years after the present ruling party under Narendra Modi’s caliber have revoked Kashmir Special Constitution and Article 370. While going inside the house, both of them recalled their respective lives during 1990 genocide.


(To make this story intense and effective, I use First-person narration)


FEW YEARS BACK:


1990:


KASHMIR:


At 3:00 AM, loudspeakers stormed the whole place of Kashmir.


“All the Hindus leave the place or get accept Islam. This is a Islamic state now.” Everything was burning. All the temples were set on fire. And suddenly, a huge rock shattered the window of poor Anjali’s room. She and her parents were in utter shock. Their beloved neighbors who once celebrated Diwali with them, has started to pelt stone at them. To add to that, they saw the house next to them(also a Kashmiri Pandit) was in huge flames.


She could hear the screaming and burning of the person inside it. They came to know later, that it was their house which was targeted first, but it was misjudged due to andhera. They all knew their end was near if they didn’t act fast. Small girls were abducted and raped and then converted to Islam. They weren’t allowed to escape.


Anjali’s mother pushed her in a 4*4 suitcase to hide from these animals. One of her relatives requested their Muslim friend to help him escape.


“Bhaijaan, we know each other for so many days, please help us escape.”


“Yeah sure, come with me” said Bhaijaan. Bhaijaan took him in a narrow gully and stabbed him 26 times in the stomach. Somehow, Anjali’s mother grabbed 500 rupees and were able to escape the godforsaken place. And there were thousands of other Anjali’s mother who were forced to leave their everything behind all of a sudden. And thousands of Anjali’s lost their life or got trapped in the hell back then. Just once small insight- One of my friend’s mother was made to eat rice soaked in her own husband’s blood. Just Imagine!!


If you think I and my girlfriend are lying ask some other Kashmir Pandit. If you think he is lying too, ask another. And another, and another, and another. You’ll get the same answer. Now all of them can’t lie, isn’t it?


During late 1980 and 1990’s, Kashmir was swept with a wave of Islamic extremism and many sane and middle class Muslims got carried away. But, I would like to point out that we saw three broad categories of Muslim reaction.


SRINAGAR:


I and Anjali were just 3 years old during that time. I didn’t understand everything back then but could sense that fear. During January to March 1990 while we were in Srinagar- the last days where our generations had been living for thousands of years.


There would be endless curfews. One day while I and Anjali were in school some militant group started firing, we all hid in our classrooms, later that day my mom Aditi Pandit came to pick me up during 30-40 minutes of break in between curfew, she wasn’t wearing her ath and bindi(ath has the same significance to a KP married women as is of Sindoor and Mangalsutra in other parts of India). She had her head covered. I didn’t understand why but back then it was the first time I sensed that something was terribly wrong. We didn’t take the main route. We didn’t take the main route. We took some odd shady lanes to reach our home to avoid mobs. Some army men even helped us to reach our home assuring us nothing will happen to us.


There were shoot at sight orders during curfew. During those days of curfew, and any food items in the house, we would rarely eat properly. We as kids used to complain a lot about that. We would keep our windows closed most of the time. My little brother Arjun Pandit would sneak into the room and open the window, there were tear gases thrown on the huge mobs by Army.


FEW YEARS LATER:


2020:


Years passed as such. I and Anjali were living in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. I was raised up by my aunt Sharadha Pandit’s family. Anjali too grew up in Bangalore. We never met each other following the genocide and our subsequent migration to Bangalore. We often met each other in Christ University. We love each other since childhood days.


I completed Law course in the university. My aunt Dwaraka Dutt didn’t reveal what exactly happened to my parents. But, I and my brother hoped they would be alive. I subsequently was doing my post-graduation degree in the same college.


During the time I and Anjali spent in the college hostel, she asked me: “How much I love her?”


I said: “In all the world, there is no heart for me, like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like me.” Our love grew stronger and our respective family members agreed to the marriage consent. My father’s friends: Retired DGP Harsha Vardhan, Retired Journalist Raagul Roshan and Retired Dr. Sanjay Kumar met us during the family gathering in Bangalore. They were all planning to go back for Kashmir.


I and Anjali were asked to come sooner to the house by my brother Arjun Pandit. While, my uncle ex-IAS officer Krishna Dutt was looking into the newspapers of 1990 Kashmir genocide issues. He was very upset and devastated when reading each and every news about these.


When my aunt was serving him with coffee, I called her and informed I would be coming to the house with Anjali. She agreed. As Krishna was looking into the newspapers of Kashmir genocide, his wife consoled him and said: “Everything would be okay.” She asked him to get ready.


The friends gather together inside the house. While, DGP Harsha ordered his friends not to speak about politics and their past life. Krishna said: “Even we shouldn’t speak anything about Kashmir.”


“Then, no mention of exodus” said Raagul.


“No. That’s not exodus. Genocide” said Krishna. Meanwhile, I and Anjali Pandit entered inside the house. With warm welcome, I and she went inside the house, where we all spoke some happy moments spent in the college.


When speaking, DGP Harsha asked me: “So Vikash. How could you describe your college days?”


Thinking for a while, I replied: “Nothing much uncle. I was just in books and studies. I participated in politics as a part of my law course. I came to know that Muslims and Christians are exploited and discriminated during 2020 Bangalore riots. And there are lots of such things in our country. I realized the practical world apart from books.”


This agitates him deeply. Yet he remained silent. At this point of time, Arjun Pandit asked my aunt: “Aunty. I wanted to visit the place of my parents. Kindly take us there. We are asking you for several days.”


Hearing this, my uncle was irritated. He said: “We can’t go there…Because…” He murmured. However, I was tensed with this. At this point of time, the Journalist asked us: “So brothers. What do you know about Kashmir?”


Arjun is in his first year at Mumbai University. He recalled the things that were taught to him in the university and said: “Kashmir belongs to Muslims and Christians. It’s not the integral part of India. Gandhi and Nehru gave special status and Article 370 for the state for our people’s welfare.” Hearing this, the oldie people got furious. They ridiculed the Indian Education system saying: “How they mastered in telling lies about the real problem through cooked-up histories.”


Doctor Sanjay Kumar ridiculed Raagul Roshan’s journalists as corrupt and biased to one particular people. This creates a mess between the duo and DGP Harsha consoled him to calm down. Now, I pleaded with my uncle telling: “Uncle. Please. I know well. Once my parents were only talking about militants, the army, innocent Kashmir Pandits getting brutally killed in various parts of the valley. What exactly happened to them? Please tell.” Even Anjali demanded answers from them.


Krishna Dutt said: “Yes. Kashmir Pandits who will be targeted next would be pasted on walls of the local mosque, that was the only discussion happening in our house during those days.” He looked into my eyes and Arjun’s while speaking.


1990:


KASHMIR:


We managed to flee to Bangalore so that we will be able to return once the conditions were normal. One morning after you woke up, you didn’t find your parents there. Your brother a toddler back then enquired about them. Arjun and you went to the garden area and realized something terrible has happened to them and you may not see them again. Because, Dwaraka won’t tell you because you were kids. I will tell you what happened to them.


Your parents had sneaked to your deserted house in Srinagar at around 4-5 am(To avoid getting noticed by the neighbors. Before coming to Bangalore, they were all staying in Anant Nag when leaving from Kashmir valley) to get some documents that were necessary if we had decided to flee to Jammu or Bangalore. But, was sooner killed by the militants.


Almost all of our relatives were fleeing, leaving everything behind, and no one would share information regarding which day they would flee even with their closest relatives fearing that if Kashmir Muslims would come to know they will inform militants and then their houses will be looted, or ladies of that house raped.


When we migrated we were in one taxi- your brother, you, your aunt and me myself. We had just one small suitcase with which we started a new life in Jammu. The initial few years in Jammu were harrowing. I can’t even describe that period. We were humiliated and called Kashmiri lole, but now we can live in harmony with our Jammu people. If anyone asks you and me about native place, I say I am a Kashmiri Pandit from Jammu.


After my uncle, DGP Harsha said what happened during Kashmir genocide.


During 1985 to 1990 we were staying in Srinagar, just adjacent to a mosque, and were one of the few pandit families in that area, one night while having dinner, paper wrapped in stone was thrown into our home through a window, written in Urdu: leave our Kashmir before you see our wrath and leave your Pandit wife for us. After that incident, next few nights your father would lock the main door from outside, jump in from the window and all of you will be tucked under the bed to ensure that even if they crashed in, they might not find you on beds and would leave without harming you both.


PRESENT:


Now, Anjali said to Harsha: “Yes uncle. We couldn’t trust anyone, not even the people with whom we had lived for years. We feared everyone. We stopped taking milk from regular milk vendors, vegetables from our regular vendor fearing they may pass information to militants that ours is a Pandit family.”


“Every night huge crowd would be on the streets shouting slogans like ‘Hum kya chahate- Aazadi Aazadhi ka Matlab kya- La Ilaha Illallah.’ 25 years have passed since then and I still can feel those terrors that I felt during those nights.” Dwaraka Pandit said to the people.


Arjun and I were heartbroken with the deaths of our parents and beloved Pandits. While, Anjali asked them: “My father was brutally killed by our own Muslim neighbor. Our friend Roshan Pandit’s family was killed by Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front leaders: Farooq Malik and Yasmaan Bitta. Roshan’s mother and elder brother too got murdered brutally in 2003. My mother lost her life. Roshan’s grandfather demanded to remove Article 370. Why didn’t the Journalists cover up this news?”


“Because media and government were corrupt and biased. With their support only, these people were atrocious. Media works as an indirect terrorists in our nation.” Doctor Sanjay Kumar, said this and told what happened on January 4, 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, another local daily repeated the warning. These warnings were followed by Kalashnikov-wielding masked Jihads carrying out military-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 at numerous places in the valley, in order to instill fear into the already terrified Kashmiri Pandit community.


PRESENT:


Recalling these events, Harsha said to me: “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 and is 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.”


1990:


They signaled the implementation of their intentions quite blatantly. M.L.Bhan of Khonmoh, Srinagar, a government employee was killed on January 15, 1990. Baldev Raj Dutta, an operator in Lal Chowk, Srinagar, was kidnapped on the same day. His dead body was found four days later, on Jan 19, 1990, at Nai Sarak, Srinagar. The body bore tell-tale marks of brutal torture.


PRESENT:


At present, Journalist Raagul Roshan said: “Hello sir. You are just speaking about your sides. Think about our Journalist’s life during that time. 19 of us were killed while trying to investigate on this. Judge Ganjoo was killed. What about all these things? Even an Air Force officer was brutally killed in afternoon. There, Farooq Yasmin Malik kept Pakistan Flag. What could you say about that?”


“Okay sir. Did any of your media channel agreed to expose terrorists? They said them as rebels. The crimes, modus operandi are same. They wanted to separate Kashmir. Media is the invisible part of that. Our people would beat them up by bringing to roads.”


However, Raagul ridiculed Harsha by saying that: He too was for sale auction because of corrupt politicians. If Journalists are corrupt and paid, then police officers too were paid up. Why didn’t he do anything against the terrorists, even though he was powerful? Harsha angrily shouted at him saying: “How dare you? Challenging my honesty level. I fought alone with terrorists. I came back alive by fighting the death. Padma Shri wasn’t given easily to me.”


“No. They want you to shut your mouth. That’s why you had been honored with Padma Shri. It’s very easy to criticize the Media. Did anybody gave us protection? Did they protect us I asked?” Hearing this, Sanjay replied: “Traitors won’t be protected.”


“Yes.” DGP Harsha said. This caused a huge fight between Sanjay and Raagul Roshan. Upon seeing this, I and Arjun pleaded with my uncle to stop their fight. However, he remained silent and said: “It’s 30 years of pains and sufferings. Let it happen.” Harsha consoled them and he made them to sit.


“This is called as Info war. Very advanced war. Very dangerous war. It’s a war for narratives. Now can I tell you one thing? When the foreign press came for Kashmir, their first contact is Pakistan sponsored. They functioned as a separatist network. They would take him to the personal location. Getting Rs. 500, they would ask a fabricated story and get it from them. Whom they use? Children, girls and in photo shops, they could use intense photography as a setup. Without relating to any histories in India, they would use false narratives about Anti-India, Religious India, etc.”


I realized how much politics were behind Kashmir Pandit’s genocide. He explained how Bhopal Gas tragedy was put continually in the news and how Jews were reminded about the genocide in Germany under Hitler’s rule. When I asked, “Why wasn’t our pain told to the people?” my uncle replied: “None was ready to hear the truth.”


“Do you know something Vikash and Arjun? I wanted to share this with you for a long time.”


NIGHT OF JANUARY 19, 1990:


The doctor who delivered you is a Kashmiri Pandit. She is also my neighbor. The conditions in Kashmir were deteriorating day after day. During Ramzan even non-Muslims were not allowed to eat food. Temples were being manhandled etc. etc. So doctor’s family decided to leave Kashmir but she was adamant and said that conditions will become better eventually. So her husband along with kids shifted to Jammu. Right after the day uncle left for Jammu, she went to Hospital for her job just like any other day. Upon entering the hospital a child came rushing towards her and gave her a chit and then ran away.


When she opened the chit inside it was written in Kashmiri.


“If you want to stay alive better start wearing bhurka or don’t come out of your house. Now even your husband isn’t there to save you.” She that very day gave in her resignation and caught a bus to Jammu. The family never went back to Kashmir. Even today if you talk about Kashmir she won’t say anything only cry silent tears of sorry.


After this, Doctor Sanjay Kumar opened up the incident on the night of January 19, 1990. The night witnessed macabre happenings, the like of which had not been witnessed by Kashmiri Pandits after the Afghan rule. Those that experienced the fear of that night are unlikely to forget it in their lifetime. For future generations, it will be a constant reminder of the brutality of Islamic radicals, who had chosen the timing very carefully.


“Farooq Ismail, whose government had all but seized to exist, resigned. A minister from Central provinces arrived during the day to take charge as the Governor of the State.” He took over the charge of the Governor just the previous night at Jammu. He had made efforts to reach Srinagar during the previous day, but the plane had to return to Jammu from Pir Panjal Pass, due to extremely bad weather. Though curfew was imposed to restore some semblance of order, it had little effect. The mosque pulpits continued to be used to exhort people to defy curfew and join Jihad against the Pandits, while armed cadres of JKLF marched through the streets of the valley, terrorizing them no end.


As the night fell, the microscopic community became panic-stricken when the valley began reverberating with the war-cries of Islamists, who had stage-managed the whole event with great care. Choosing it’s 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.’


Those 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 perish). Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims poured into the streets of the valley, shouting ‘Death to India’ and death to Kafris.


These slogans, broadcast from the loudspeakers of every mosque, numbering roughly 1100, exhorted the hysterical mobs to embark on Jihad. All male Muslims, including their children and the aged, wanted to be seen to be participating in this Jihad. 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 façade of the secular, tolerant, cultured, peaceful and educated outlook of Kashmiri Muslims, which the Indian intelligentsia and the liberal media had made them wear for their own reasons.


Most of the Kashmiri Muslims behaved as if they did not know who the Pandits were. This frenzied mass hysteria went on till Kashmiri Pandits despondency turned into desperation, as the night wore itself out.


For the first time after the 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 of intolerant and radical Islam. It represented the complete antithesis or the over-rated ethos of Kashmiriyat that was supposed to define Kashmiri ethos.


The pusillanimous Central Government was caught napping and its agencies in the State, particularly the army and other paramilitary forces, did not consider it necessary to intervene, in the absence of any orders. The State Government had been so extensively subverted that the skeleton staff of the administration at Srinagar (the winter capital of the State had shifted to Jammu in November 1989) decided not to confront the huge mobs. Delhi was too far away, anyway.


Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits phoned everyone in authority at Jammu, Srinagar, and Delhi, to save them from the sure catastrophe that awaited them.


The Pandits could see the writing on the wall. If they were lucky enough to see the night through, they would have to vacate the place before they met the same fate as Tikka Lal Taploo and many others. The Seventh Exodus was surely staring them in the face. By morning, it became apparent to Pandits that Kashmiri Muslims had decided to throw them out from the Valley. Broadcasting vicious Jehadi sermons and revolutionary songs, interspersed with blood-curdling shouts and shrieks, threatening Kashmiri Pandits with dire consequences, became a routine ‘Mantra’ of the Muslims of the Valley, to force them to flee from Kashmir. Some of the slogans used were:


O! Merciless, O! Kafris leave our Kashmir


Anyone wanting to live in Kashmir will have to convert to Islam


From East to West, there will be only Islam


O! Muslims, Arise O! Kafris, scoot


Islam is our objective, Quran is our constitution, Jihad is our way of our life


Kashmir will become Pakistan


We will turn Kashmir into Pakistan along with Kashmiri Pandit woman, but without their men folk


Islam defines our relationship with Pakistan


With fear of Allah ruling your hears, wield a Kalashnikov


We want to be ruled under Shari’ah.


(What is the message of People’s league? Victory, Freedom and Islam.)


Wall posters in fairly large letters, proclaiming Kashmir as the ‘Islamic Republic of Kashmir’, became a com­mon sight in the entire Valley. So were the big and prominent advertisements in local dailies, proclaiming their intent:


‘Aim of the present struggle is the supremacy of Islam in Kashmir, in all walks of life and nothing else. Anyone who puts a hurdle in our way will be annihilated’.


Press release of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) published in the morning edition of Urdu Daily ‘Aftab’ of April 01, 1990.


‘Kashmiri Pandits responsible for duress against Muslims should leave the Valley within two days’.


Headlines of Urdu Daily, Al Safa, of April 14, 1990.


‘With Kalashnikov in one hand and Quran in the other, the Mujahids would openly roam the streets singing the Tarana-e- Kashmir.’


PRESENT:


At present, I, Anjali and Arjun Pandit were devastated and depressed a lot upon hearing the plight of our Pandits. We both exclaimed in anger: “Sir. We read about our enemies such as Muhammad Ghazni, Muhammad of Ghor, The Delhi Sulthanate and The Mughal Empire. But, we failed to bring out the pains and sufferings of our Hindus and Kashmiri Pandits. Our generations were taught with false history. Till now, our government is using this brainwashing tactics. And what is justice in final?”


As I asked in tears, my uncle Krishna Dutt and ex-DGP Harsha Vardhan said: “Hope. People would try to destruct your hope through genocide and killings. But, you have to stay stronger. People like you must expose the truth to the society.” I planned to expose the harsh and bitter truth suffered by our Kashmiri Pandits to the world. With Anjali and Arjun’s help, I wrote “The Kashmir Diaries” mentioning the- 1990 Kashmir genocide, 2003 Nadimarg Massacre and 2019 Pulvama Attacks.


We faced lots of criticisms and opposition from various people. But, we showed them strong evidences regarding the 1990 Genocide and introduced a lots of eye-witness, who saw these genocide issues. Thank god. If they are not there, our government could have completely changed the story of Kashmiri Pandit’s history of genocide.


PRESENT:


(First person narration ends here.)


At present, Vikash found out the remaining ashes of his parents. While, Anjali went to her old house and the place, where her father was murdered brutally by her neighbouring Muslim guy. They mourn their family member’s death. After this, Vikash and Anjali embraced each other at the place of Amarnath, where people visit to see Lord Shiva(who is also called as “Snow Mountain Mahadeva.”)


While returning back to their house in Kashmir, Vikash recalled one more incident explained by his friend:


“The pleadings for help were incessant. But not a soldier came to their rescue. Therefore, Kashmiri Pandits found the best protection in huddling together indoors, frozen with fear, praying for the night to pass. The foreboding of the impending doom was too over-powering to let them have even a wink of sleep.” While Vikash’s brother proceeds to drive his car towards their house after confirming that “Everything is fine and fair.”


EPILOGUE:


This story is dedicated to the innocent Kashmiri Pandits, who sacrificed their lives during the 1990 genocide. 


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