Kashmir Files

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What happened before the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/before-exodus-of-kashmiri-pandits-1928582-2022-03-23

Plebiscite Front in Pakistan-occupied areas of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir founded by Amanullah Khan in 1965

Hijacking of a Srinagar-Jammu flight in January 1971. Bangladesh ware

By the end of the 1970s, Islamist fundamentalism in Afghanistan, mentored by Pakistani agencies with the aid of the US and Saudi Arabia. the Islamic Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini took Iran by storm. Wahabism was spreading in the Af-Pak region.

Amanatullah found JKLF, which peaked in 1980s

1984: Amanatulla Khan asked by Pakistani Army to trigger insurgency in Valley.

Farookh Abdullah takes over CM 1982. Wins 1983 elections. But party splits, Gul Shah takes over.

Militancy increases

Feb 1986 Gul Shah addressed a public meeting in the Valley where he said, “Islam khatre mein hai [Islam is in danger]. Massive rioting happened in Kashmir Valley.

Governor Jagmohan dismissed the Gul Shah’s government.

Sheikh Abdullah-Indira Pact, rehabs Sheikh Abdullah. Sheikh accused of letting Wahabi wave take over Sufism of Kashmir

Muslim United Front demanded the Quranic law be made the law in the state assembly. Their leaders included Syed Ali Shah Geelani (later Hurriyat chief), Yasin Malik (separatist leader) and Mohammad Yusuf Shah aka Syed Salahuddin (the head of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen).

Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections in 1987. The election is considered as the most-rigged election in India. The election brought Farooq Abdullah to power in Jammu and Kashmir.

Vishwanath Pratap Singh, becomes PM overthrowing Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. Singh made Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (arch rival of Abdullah) his home minister

Abdullah had already declared that he would resign if Jagmohan was made governor. He resigned the same day when Jagmohan was appointed January 19, 1990.

The targeted killings that started in September 1989 rose sharply in the Kashmir Valley in January 1990. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits began soon after as Jagmohan came and Abdullah went away.

1990: 29th Jan 1990 Exodus

OPeration Topac final stage 1991. Zia ul Haq dies in plane crash. Militant trigger riots in Srinagar, Baramulla, Pulwama, Bhaderwah, Anantanag

Kashmiri Pandit exodus: chronology & players, Abdullahs & Muftis, VP Singh, Jagmohan & Narasimha Rao Mar 18, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSODfgCXvqU 

As controversy rages around Vivek Aghnihotri’s ‘The Kahsmir Files’ watch this abridged version of Cut The Clutter in which Shekhar Gupta breaks down the chronology of Jammu and Kashmir’s political past. He revisits the most important political developments that led to Kashmiri Pandits’ plight 

Main chronology considered significant by Shekar Gupta

Kashmiri files movie ki Pol khol di Nishant Verma ne कश्मीरी फाइल्स फिल्म की पोल खोल दी निशांत वर्मा
Mar 19, 2022About Letter:  https://youtu.be/GWjGEhE8ZCA?t=120

1990 letter by Pandits blames guv, Mufti Zulfikar Majid Srinagar: September 29, 2016, DHNS, SEP 29 2016, https://www.deccanherald.com/content/573024/1990-letter-pandits-blames-guv.html  https://www.deccanherald.com/content/573024/1990-letter-pandits-blames-guv.html 

e two-page letter, dated September 22, 1990, and duly signed by 23 Pandits, states: “There can be no dispute about the fact that the Kashmiri Pandit community was made a scapegoat by Jagmohan, some self-styled leaders of our community and other vested interests.”... According to reliable and well-informed sources, the plan was to make Pandits migrate from the Valley so that the uprising against India could be painted as a communal flare-up and the massacre of Muslims could be termed as a fight against the communal forces and a measure for the restoration of law and order,” the letter states.

Ex-Governor - J&K, Jagmohan on Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq incident | Archival footage Oct 1, 2019  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiRSKpAJUU 

Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq the 44-year-old head of the Awami Action Committee perceived to be a moderate militant was departed from his life by three men on the 21st of May, 1990. A surging mass of people wound through the streets of Srinagar in a spontaneous interment procession. The security forces retaliated in self-defence. At the gathering, the crowd shouted 'Maulana ka kaatil kaun? Jagmohan-Jagmohan'. Jagmohan was forced to take moral responsibility and resign.

Ex-Governor - J&K, Jagmohan says "Why should the moral responsibility only rest with the government and not somebody else. Not only this but even up to the lower lever you know the DG. They are exposing the other people the DG, the additional DG, the DIG and so on moral responsibility doesn't travel directly from the lowest to the top. So, therefore, the issue is first to find out an inquiry and to find out who is at fault?"

Exodus of Hindu Kashmiri Pandits from Srinagar valley Oct 28, 2020  Wilderness Films India Ltd. 

 Kashmir had a population of one lakh forty thousand (1,40,000) Hindus. In 6 months, more than one lakh Hindus have fled their homes with just their clothes on their backs. Several pockets of Hindu population have become a ghost town. There were numerous pressures that forced these Hindus to leave. Children had no schools to go to, colleges had closed, weeks of curfew had converted homes into prisons often without electricity, water and food. But most of all, it was the tension of being a minority in an increasingly fanatical atmosphere where the very air they breathed was laid with violence and fear. They had to leave secured jobs, sometimes of 20 years. Established business running for generations and even the properties and orchards for a blank certain future with marginal help from the government. Why they asked, should we be refugees in our own country?

Reporting from Kashmir, 1989 to 1994 - Part 1 Sep 20, 2019  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb34Ap2muJI  To preempt mass protests against its dismantling of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, the Indian government put the Valley under a security lockdown and communications blackout. The lockdown, nearing a month and a half, has been so severe that even journalists have been finding it difficult to do their work. Not that it was easy to report from Kashmir before. Since the armed insurgency broke out in 1989, journalists covering the region have often had to negotiate tricky situations.

In this series, “Reporting from Kashmir, 1989 to 1994”, Madhu Trehan and her former Newstrack colleagues Manoj Raghuvanshi and Alpana Kishore recount their time reporting from Kashmir, and what they learned from their experiences. “These two I would say are the ones in India and perhaps in the world who have done the most remarkable stories on Kashmir,” Madhu remarks, introducing her former colleagues.

Manoj recalls that, on occasion, he had to risk his safety to record interviews and collect stories from Anantnag and Shopian in South Kashmir. “Shopian is a place where we almost got killed, twice,” he says.

Among the stories he covered in the early years of the insurgency was the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. He remembers interviewing Bitta Karate, a militant who was accused of killing Pandits and who told Manoj he could kill his own brother or mother if the situation so demanded.

It became dangerous for Manoj to report from Kashmir, so his colleague, Alpana, took over. She tracked the rise of Hizbul Mujahideen, the strongest indigenous militant group in the Valley, and the shifting of the Kashmir movement’s focus “from Azadi to an Islamic jihad or radicalisation”.

Reporting from Kashmir, 1989 to 1994 - Part 2 Sep 25, 2019 To preempt mass protests against its dismantling of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, the Indian government put the Valley under a security lockdown and communications blackout. The lockdown, in place for over a month and a half now, has been so severe that even journalists have been finding it difficult to do their work.

Not that it was easy to report from Kashmir before. Since the armed insurgency broke out in 1989, journalists covering the region have often had to negotiate tricky situations.

Kashmir Files: Agnihotri cites exaggerated figures of 4,000 Kashmiri Pandit deaths -  Sabrangindia 19 Mar 2022  https://sabrangindia.in/article/kashmir-files-agnihotri-cites-exaggerated-figures-4000-kashmiri-pandit-deaths  Manipulated data fuels the rage around Kashmir Files

Fact Check: Here’s why viral RTI reply says only 89 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants in J&K https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/fact-check-here-is-why-viral-rti-reply-says-only-89-kashmiri-pandits-were-killed-by-militants-in-j-k-1926386-2022-03-17 
The India Today Anti-Fake News War Room found that the RTI response provided the death toll since 1990 and did not include killings in 1989. 
As per news reports which quoted the J&K police and the state government, over 200 Kashmiri Pandits have been killed due to militancy since 1989. As per a report published in The Indian Express in 2008, “Jammu and Kashmir Police report says that 209 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants since 1989.” According to this report, “of the 209 Kashmiri Pandits killed, 109 died in 1990.” That means that over 100 people were killed in 1989 alone — something that was not covered in the 2021 RTI response.