The Debate Over Kashmiri Pandits’ Exodus Has Rekindled After ‘Kashmir Files’ Release
New Delhi:
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury tried Monday to corner the ruling BJP over the exodus of minorities from Kashmir in the 1990s, saying that then-opposition leader Rajiv Gandhi was then Vice-President Singh. government to intervene and stop the “atrocities” committed against Kashmiri pandits and Sikhs.
The exodus of people from the Kashmir valley only started after Jammu and the governor of Kashmir, Jagmohan, asked them, especially Kashmiri pandits and Sikhs, to leave, saying he would not be able to protect them, Chowdhury said in Lok Sabha while raising the issue during Zero Hour. †
“Terrorists and jihadists started perpetrating atrocities against all pandits and Sikhs,” he said, adding that “the VP Singh government was then working with the support of the BJP.”
At the time, Mr Chowdhury said, then-Congress President and Leader of the Opposition Rajiv Gandhi had raised his voice against the exodus of people from Kashmir, asking the then government to stop it “anyway”, and warned that the people of the land would not. accept it.
“At that time, Rath Yatra from Lal Krishna started Advani ji and (Narendra) Modi ji, our (current) Prime Minister, became the event manager of this yatra,” he continued.
Later raising the issue at Zero Hour, BJP member Sunil Kumar Singh demanded that the government launch an investigation into the “large-scale atrocities” committed against Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir from 1980 to 1990, especially in the period between 1984 and 1989 when Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, and the guilty are punished.
He also demanded that an investigation be conducted to determine on whose orders a total of 70 terrorists were released in 1989 in Jammu and Kashmir.
“These terrorists played a part in genocide… the nation wants to know,” he said.
The debate surrounding the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has been rekindled after the release of a movie about it — ‘The Kashmir Files’.
