Kashmiri activists slam Farooq Abdullah’s call for probe into exodus of Kashmiri Pandits

Kashmiri Activists slammed National Conference (NC) Chief Farooq Abdullah for demanding a probe into the exodus of Kashmiri pandits from the Valley. Abdullah on Sunday sought an investigation led by retired Supreme Court judges into the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the early 1990s.

Answering a question amid a webinar, Abdullah asserted that he would support any initiative which would bring Kashmiri Pandits back to the Valley. While adding, he even took the liberty to blame the exodus on then Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Jagmohan.

Calling Abdullah a “liar”, Kashmiri Activist Lalit Ambardar told Republic TV,  “Kashmiri Islamists including the main stream they master the art of manipulating discourse to suit their audiences in Jammu, Srinagar and Ladakh and also their left liberal secular Mates in Delhi. He (Farooq Abdullah) is the one who in an interview spoke of establishing a commission of inquiry. Meanwhile, he like a liar denies that nothing happened in Kashmir that it was not the Islamists, the perpetrators of genocide and that it was Jagmohan who facilitated and organised the mass exodus of Kashmiri pandits, he said the same thing in the same interview.”

“He says all this to suit his audiences. Our population (Kashmiri Pandits) was reduced by the Islamists over the years. The Islamists saw that Kashmiri pandits symbolise India across the valley hence they went after us,” he added.

Around 60,000 Kashmiri Pandit families are registered as migrants

Around 60,000 Kashmiri Pandit families are registered as migrants after the onset of militancy in the Kashmir Valley in early 1990s. Further lambasting the National Conference chief, Ambardar asserted that the former fled the country at the time exodus took place.

“He fled himself for security and did not return to the valley for six years and left Kashmiri to the mercy of AK 47 jihadis who were hunting for us and now again he has the audacity to repeat the same lie.  The people who should have been hanged were given a political makeover. It is only I second tenure of Modi government that protagonist of jihad Yasin Malik has been put in jail,” he said.

Similar sentiments were echoed by another activist Amit Raina, who told Republic TV that unlike Abdullah who led the country, Governor Jagmohan helped Kashmiri Pandits. “Had it not been for Jagmohan, Kashmiri Pandits would have died of Hunger,” he said.

He added that Abdullah is only raking the issue because him, his son Omar Abdullah and the entire family have been rendered irrelevant post abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. During the webinar on the topic, “Discerning old order delineating new order-a year after neutralization of Article 370 and abrogation of Article 35 A”, Abdullah was questioned if he would back a genocide bill being coined by the Panun Kashmir, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation seeking a separate homeland for the migrants.

Replying to the query, Abdullah said, “a sincere and honest judge of Supreme Court, retired judge of Supreme Court, a team of judges…let them investigate and come out with their report. It will clear many minds around the globe, among the younger Kashmiri Pandits, that it was not Kashmiri Muslims who threw them out. There are still many Kashmiri Pandits who never left and they are living here.”