Displaced Pandits have urged the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to give due consideration to the plight of 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Hindus who were forced to leave their homeland by militant groups inspired by Islamic extremist ideology in 1989-90.
In the backdrop of attacks by militants on Pandit habitations and vandalism of transit camps housing minority community employees by stone- throwing mobs during the 2016 unrest, human rights activists have urged the UN body to take note of fact that Pandits have been denied the right to live in the Valley by armed groups, sponsored by Pakistan.
Today, a memorandum has been submitted to the Universal Periodic Review Group of the UNHRC at Geneva on India Reporting through the United Nations Office in New Delhi by human rights activists Utpal Koul and Ashwani Chrangoo, president, Panun Kashmir (PK), a frontal organisation of the community.
“While there is a big agenda for discussion in the meeting regarding India Reporting, we take this opportunity to bring to your kind notice our plight under the category ‘attack on religious minorities’ and ‘human rights violations’ in Kashmir. Pandits are victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing and mass exodus inflicted upon us by Pakistan-sponsored and guided terrorists since 1990,” says the memorandum.
“It is important to present the other side of story. Several human rights bodies have highlighted and raised the issue of the Pandit community, who faced onslaught from terror groups in the Valley”, said Ashwani Chrangoo.
The memorandum says that it has been observed since long that UN bodies have been fed with a one-sided story of the Kashmir situation by activists funded by separatist elements in Kashmir. It claims that terror groups, inspired by religious extremism, also made non-Muslims, particularly the minority Hindus, targets in the hilly areas of the Jammu region and conducted a large number of organised massacres.
“A large part of these hapless Hindus also continue to live as displaced people outside their historical habitat. Due to the growing incidents of terror attacks in the Valley and opposition by separatists to resettle Pandits back, it is hard for the community to return to their homes,” said Utpal Koul, a human rights activist.
Rights’ bodies on exodus of Hindus
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had observed that “the commission is constrained to observe that acts akin to genocide have occurred in respect of the Kashmiri Pandits and in the minds and utterances of some of the militants and terrorists a ‘genocide-type design’ may exist against the Pandits”
The US Committee for Refugees had observed that “the fundamentalist terrorists had driven the Pandits out by systematic ethnic cleansing”. Frank Pallone, a Congressman in the US, had also raised the issue of the community in mid-1990s
Amnesty International reports had mentioned, “Among the civilian population, Hindus have been frequently targeted by the armed opposition groups in Kashmir”
The Belgium Association in Solidarity with the People of Jammu and Kashmir, has visited the refugee camps of Pandits a number of times and brought out a number of reports giving details about their plight due to the armed conflict
Displaced Kashmiri Pandits turn to UN over rights violations in state
