"Roots In Kashmir" is an initiative launched by us, the Kashmiri Pandit Youth, to reclaim our Roots that identify us. Even though we have been hounded out of our homes and hearths in the Kashmir valley, our "Roots" are very much anchored in the Vitasta Valley. This is an initiative to protest and raise the general awareness of public to a level where our "fight for our roots" is felt, heard and acted upon. rootsinkashmir@outlook.com
#ITFBlive Following the India Today Expose, the case against #BittaKarate has been reopened and he has been taken to an undisclosed location for questioning by NIA #HurriyatTruthTapes
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155897714387119&id=23230437118
Kashmir is on the boil. It has been that way for decades now. After Burhan Wani’s death on July 8, and the consequent actions and reactions to it in the Valley, it feels as if someone has turned up the volume.
And now suddenly there is some buzz about a video by Wani’s possible successor, young Hizbul Mujahideen leader Zakir Rashid Bhat. Newspaper reports claim that he has invited the “other” Kashmiris — the Pandits — to the Valley. He has also asked Sikhs seeking revenge for Operation Blue Star to join forces with him. It’s a strange bundling of invitations.
It is worth noting that Bhat, who is all of 22-years-old, is “inviting” the Pandits who were forced out of the Valley 26 years ago.
“The whole Kashmir movement is a jihadi movement for a Sharia-based Islamic republic. With world opinion strongly against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the separatists and terrorists are now trying to find ways to disguise the same as a freedom moment of all Kashmiris and not only Kashmiri Sunni Muslim. Calling the Pandits back to the Valley will make the whole fight look secular,” says Amit Raina, a leading voice in the Pandit community and an activist with Roots in Kashmir, a youth initiative for Kashmiri Pandits. Raina was 14 years old when he left the Valley.
“The Hizbul invite is like a black widow spider’s invitation — be nice, entice and annihilate once trapped. It was the same Hizbul that had assured the Pandits at Wandhama before selling them out to the Lashkar-e-Taiba leading to death of 23 Pandits. So the invitation can be ignored without a second thought,” he adds.
“The context of Bhat’s invitation is in the ignominy of Hindu genocide in the Kashmir valley. This invitation is a desperate attempt to look and sound civilised,” says Sushil Pandit, an activist.
Bhat is reported to have said, “They [Pandits] should look at those Pandits who have been living in the Valley. Did they face any problems here?” Kashmiris in the Valley are living through horrific times. These invitations — which are sometimes given a secular flavour and otherwise a nationalist note — make a mockery of the Pandits, and their suffering.
When Arvind Gigoo left the Valley in 1990, he was teaching in a college in Anantnag. “Return is next to impossible. No Kashmiri Pandit will go back. Bhat has an agenda. Nobody takes us seriously, we are a useless community,” says the retired professor in a bitter tone.
My father, Chaman Lal Sapru, also a retired professor, recounts those days before the exodus. “How can one forget the headline in Alsafa [a weekly magazine]— ‘KPs should leave in 10 days’, or the cries of ‘rallev, challev ya mariv’ (Become part of us, run away or die)!” says the octogenarian. “Farooq Abdullah and his family ran away to London. He did nothing to stop the Pandits.”
Time and the way many Pandits look at this are relative. For those who were forced to leave the Valley the events of 1990 seemed like they happened just yesterday. The intensity of the pain has not diminished.
But for many born outside the Valley, Kashmir is just a familiar word. Lenesh Matoo, a 24-year-old TV actor in Mumbai, has only been to Kashmir thrice. He would like to “visit” home, but doesn’t want to go there to live and earn a living.
So the message to Bhat, or anyone who from time to time comes with special promises for Pandits, is simple: Leave it alone, the time for all this has passed.
For the Pandits, Kashmir is always home. It will be, irrespective of where we are. And to return home, we don’t need to support anyone’s agenda.
asapru@hindustantimes.com
http://m.hindustantimes.com/analysis/hizb-should-not-use-kashmiri-pandits-to-further-its-separatist-agenda/story-oHQHKI9HFTGdLvW3FN53QM.html
Asif Ali Zardari seems to be creating one storm after another. As if his extremely vocal appreciation of Sarah Palin’s beauty was not enough, there appeared one more explosion from the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband. The recent one, however, is more dramatic and exclusive. In an interview to Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, Zardari confessed to the active presence of militant Islamic groups in J&K (according to him within the Indian occupied border). He elaborated by referring to them as ‘terrorists’ and continued to say that they are not ‘freedom fighters’ as Musharraf must have liked.
As the broadcast and print media began to flash these exclusive words, our countrymen were stunned. Coming from a Pakistani President, predecessors of whom have supported the absurd so-called freedom struggle, this was an uncanny moment.
The defence minister of
The Pakistani government weighed too much of its integrity on Kashmir, but failed miserably to convince the world that it was a fair deal. They seemed to have realised the rickety platform on which Pakistan currently stands. Expanding space for Kashmir will only push them into murky waters. For a while it shall be a wise standpoint for Pakistan to depart from their pretentious adoration of the valley and concentrate on its inner advancement.
By Sarwar Kashani
New Delhi, March 17 (IANS)
An online signature campaign by exiled Kashmiri Hindus against militant-turned-politician Yasin Malik is receiving an overwhelming response from the community the world over. Close to 550 signatures from Kashmiri Pandits have been registered at http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ymalik8 seeking “just trial” of the cases pending against Malik, chairman of the pro-independent Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
A US-based Kashmiri Pandit is behind the campaign that was launched Saturday when Malik was in Delhi to address the “Youth Forum - If I Could Change The World”, organised by the India Today media group.
Inviting Malik to address youth had apparently angered the Kashmiri Pandit activists, prompting them to also hold protests, besides the online campaign.
The JKLF chairman is accused of masterminding the killing of many Kashmiri Pandits in the late 1980s and the early 1990s that led to the exodus of around 300,000 ethnic Hindus from the terror- hit valley.
There are dozens of cases pending against him, which are currently under Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.
The cases include the killing of four Indian Air Force officers in 1989 and the murder of Lassa Koul, director, Radio Kashmir, Srinagar, in 1990.
Malik is also accused of masterminding the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.
The Kashmiri separatist leader, who gave up armed struggle in 1994 and re-launched the freedom movement from a political platform, was arrested in these cases but was set free for want of evidence against him.
However, the Pandit activists allege that the government has been too soft on Malik and no proper trial has been conducted to “give justice to the hundreds of families of the victims”.
“We believe the cases against Malik did not have a fair trial. We wonder how he is roaming free, travelling abroad on an Indian passport,” Rashneek Kher, a Delhi-based activist, told IANS.
“The families that fell victim to Malik’s await justice and in fact nobody listens to their plight,” said Kher, who also registered his signature in the online campaign.
Rahul Thathoo, the California-based student who initiated the signature campaign, said: “There is no crime known to mankind that Yasin Malik has not been involved in. You name it and he has done it all…killings, kidnappings, hawala, gun running.
“He and his JKLF goons are singularly responsible for the largest forced exodus of the modern history - that of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley,” Thathoo said inviting signatures.
Many others have also written their comments alongside their signatures on the website.
A.K. Raina said: “They (militants) meet the criteria laid by the UN as unlawful combatants, and not just ordinary criminals, who are involved in heinous crimes against peaceful citizens resulting in their ethnic cleansing and other worst crimes against humanity.”
“They need to be tried as warlords, criminals as in 9/11 (terror strike in the US), London blasts, Sydney swoop etc.”
S.R. Kaul said: “Yasin Malik and many like him would have been non-entities if the government (of India) had sincere intentions of eliminating the menace of terrorism in the country.”
“Yasin Malik should condemn terrorism and condone for being an agent of terrorism. He should apologise for having killed innocent Kashmiri Pandits,” Brij Krishen Moza said in his comments.
Also visit : AUSCHWITZ IN KASHMIR
Etalaat Newspaper of J&K writes:
Jan 25: Day of massacres in JK's bloodied history
1998: 23 Pandits massacred at Wandhama
Javed Shah
Srinagar, Jan24: Ten years after unidentified assailants wiped out 23 Kashmiri Pandits at Wandhama hamlet of Ganderbal district, police has failed to trace the killers and closed the file. It was the night of January 25, 1998 (Holy month of Ramadan was on) when the gunmen targeted the Pandits who had stayed put her. The victims had resisted the mass migration of Pandits in early 90s and decided to stay put here despite odds.
The incident sparked anger and shock across the Valley. The Hurriyat Conference had observed a protest strike demanding an enquiry by Amnesty International and other global groups into the incident. The pro-freedom groups had blamed New Delhi and the state government for the massacre.After the incident, fear psychosis gripped the Pandit community in the Valley, leading to migration of many more Pandit families from Kashmir.
Manoj Kumar Dhar, a 16-year-old boy was the lone eyewitness of the incident. In a statement to police, he said a group of masked gunmen barged into his house at about 11:30 pm and forced the inmates to come out. "I jumped out of the wall of my house. As soon as my father, brothers and sisters came out, I saw the gunmen shooting them one-by-one. They were crying and begging for life,” he had told the police.
"One of the gunmen spotted me and asked me to come out but I hid myself beneath a heap of saw dust stored in the house. They then opened fire from all sides of the house and probably thought I too was killed in the firing. I cannot identify them but they were speaking Urdu," Manjor said.
The village Muslim men were in the mosques observing Shab-e-Qadir. Police recorded statements from them. "We came to know about the killings only when our women came wailing," Abdul Ahad, a villager told the police.
The police later claimed they’d recovered a letter in which an unknown organization “Intikaam-ul-Muslimoon” had claimed responsibility for the killing of Pandits. The letter was tagged to one of the bullet-ridden bodies.Sub-Divisional police officer Ganderbal Showkat Ahmad, who was then Station Hose Officer of the area told etala’at that “the case has been untraced as no one was identified as the killer of the Pandits."
The first thing you want to know about rapper Emcee Hash is what his name stands for. It’s ‘Heavily Affected by Smoking Herb’, typicalstreet lingo that you would expect a rapper to use. But then take a look at his lyrics and it sounds as if it is 80’s broken hearted reggae or pop that talks of the romance of revolution and struggle.“Live long, pray, our story recited /for y'all to hear /refugee from the place called home/our family tree began there homes/ now we set free, with an A-k/ready to deliberate”, he sings.The California- based, Emcee Hash is not talking of a forgotten revolution. With his rap number released on the net on November 17, he has become the voice of the Kashmiri Pandits whose struggles and tears his lyrics reflect. Hash, whose formal name is Ashish Kaul, was born to immigrant Kashmiri parents who reached the US via Australia. “Such songs may help in rekindling lost hope and bringing a new zeal to realize the ultimate goal of our homeland,” says Aditya Raj Kaul, 18-years-old social activist. The fact that a US based rapper, --the song has seen about 200 downloads in the one week since it was posted on his site -- has taken up the cause of Panun Kahsmir has given even the elders of the community hope that their cause will attract international attention. “It feels nice to see that the youth has taken charge of things. It will keep our hope alive that some day we may be able to return to our homeland,” says Somnath Wali, an octogenarian activist based in Ahmedabad,Though his lyrics reflect the pain of a community driven from their land and living as refugees, Ashish Kaul hasn’t had any a feel of his place yet. Though the history of his people and the experiences that ‘scarred his brethren,’ have come to him through stories told to him and what he has read, Kaul feels that he is one among the suffers. “The song ‘Panun Kashmir’ is a work that I have wanted to do for a long time, particularly ever since I embarked on my career as a musician. Although, I haven’t personally experienced the ache and misery that KPs underwent, I feel that my inner self can express similar feelings of pain and frustration through songs like this one,” Hash told Mail Today in an e-mail interview. Hash describes himself as a Kashmiri first and then a hybrid of Indian, Australian and American cultures. “I have had the opportunity to assimilate into multiple cultures in my young life and that has only helped me in my understanding of these entirely different worlds and situations,” he says. A major reason behind the anguish and frustration so visible in his lyrics is the condition of his grandfather, who stays with him in the US and has been suffering from dementia caused by a stroke he had when circumstances forced him to sell his ancestral home in the valley. “I wanted to write a song that would highlight our story, our struggles and bring them to the forefront of the minds of people,” Ashish Kaul says. Hash, 29, who has been a profesional musician doing gigs in and around California, intends to inspire people all over the world— Hindus, Muslims and all, to realize that, “It’s not about religion, it’s about terrorism, and it is high time we take a stand and unite to destroy this horror that has molested people all over the world and particularly for over a decade the people of my community,” he says. Then why the talk of hitting back with guns in his lyrics? “My reference to using guns and fighting back do not have to be taken as literals, they are expressions of my frustration, and the important message is unity and taking a stand. I hope that is how people take it.”The rap number was in the making for quite some time. He could not begin the song until I had found the perfect instrumental for it; as soon as he heard the beat created by Rapid Fly Beats), he got to writing, and when he did, he could not stop till the song was complete. Having completed the lyrics for the song, which was in early August of 2007, Hash forwarded them to his harshest critics— his family and friends, who came up with an encouraging feedback. “I knew this would be a song that people would appreciate and would associate with, and I am glad that my assumption is becoming a reality,” he says. His Kashmiri fans are hoping that such songs will start a journey of reconciliation for them.
Picture from Times of India 
RIK Cavalcade on way to Chandigarh.
A part of the audience at the first screening.
People watching the RIK Photo Exhibition outside the auditorium.
Humidity doesn't make any difference.
Another view of the audience.
Panel Discussion: Rashneek Kher (Moderator), Vikram Chowdhry (NDTV), Sq. Ldr. B.L. Sadhu.
A notice board outside the venue.
An eager student with a query.
RIK Chandigarh Team Volunteers outside the venue.
Bitta Karate? The Home Ministry is clueless about this dreaded militant. But does it have a clue about anything else? Pramod Kumar and Rahul Pandita find out…
The phone rang late in the night. In two rings, Fatima picked it up. “Your son is free,” said a police officer on the other side. Next morning it was celebration time in Srinagar’s Guru Bazaar area. By afternoon, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate was at home. He was garlanded, and kisses were planted on his forehead. He had been set free after sixteen years in prison.
876 kilometres away, a distraught man watched these images beamed on his television set. For years, Ramesh Tikku had waited for justice. Sixteen years ago, his brother Satish was waylaid by Dar outside his home in Srinagar and shot dead in cold blood. Satish was Dar’s first victim. In the next few months, he would kill many innocent people – most of them Kashmiri Pandits. Some of them were gruesomely murdered in front of children and women. In a television interview soon after his arrest, Dar – a martial arts expert, hence the name Karate – had confessed killing 20 people, though many believe that the number is almost twice.
While ordering him to be released on bail, the TADA judge had remarked: “The court is aware of the fact that the allegations levelled against the accused are of serious nature and carry a punishment of death sentence or life imprisonment but the fact is that the prosecution has shown total disinterest in arguing the case, which is in complete violation of Article 21 of the Constitution.”
Meanwhile, Satish Tikku’s father died remembering his son.
Cut to 2007. It was on July 6, 2007 that a young Kashmiri activist filed an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI) with the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking information about Bitta Karate. Among other queries, the application sought answers to following questions:
What is the total number of cases registered against Dar?
Is the bail granted to Dar of any specified time frame or is it indefinite?
What action has been taken against the State Police for what the designated judge ND Wani called “total disinterest in arguing the case?”
Is it true that the designated officer/s (both public prosecutor and police officer) on behalf of the State was/were absent on the day of final hearing of arguments in the case? If so, please explain the reasons for absence of the designated officer/s in the court on the day of final hearing of arguments in the case?
In a letter, dated July 20, 2007, the Kashmir Division of the Home Ministry replied back. The six-line reply, a copy of which is available with TSI, said: “The information you have asked for is not available in the Kashmir Division of Ministry of Home Affairs.”
How is it possible that the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for the internal security of the country, has no information about the whereabouts of a dreaded militant? Did the ministry have no wherewithal to keep a tab on a former area commander of the JKLF? Or it just didn’t care? Looking at the recent series of events, it looks like a bit of both.
After the Hyderabad blasts, when the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil was asked about whether his ministry had any prior information about the blasts, he replied, “We had some intelligence inputs, but then, you see, India is a big country.” While Patil struggles with the bigness of India, his junior minister, Sri Prakash Jaiswal parrots a readymade answer in front of media persons, after every terrorist act. In the security meeting after the Hyderabad blasts, as Jaiswal sat briefing the Prime Minister, his national security adviser, MK Narayanan expressed unhappiness about the lax attitude of the Home ministry. In response to that, Patil replied, “We have sent a strong-worded letter to the state governments.”
The Home Minister may have taken refuge in a few ‘strong-worded’ letters but it is a fact that India is bogged down by insurgency while the Home ministry has no clue about how to tackle it. In the security meeting, the issue of terrorists using the Samjahuta Express to smuggle explosives and fake currency also came up. Narayanan was also angry that the issue of terrorists using the Myanmar route to sneak into India – it was revealed by a suspect arrested after the Hyderabad blasts – has not been taken up with the Myanmar’s government. In Uttar Pradesh alone, an alert has been sounded for around 250 missing Pakistani citizens. To identify such people, living illegally in India, the ministry has released 47 crores to make I-cards for Indian citizens in 12 states and Union territories. The pilot project was supposed to be completed by July 2007 but the fact is that it is yet to take off.
For years now, security experts have been stressing upon the need for coordination between various intelligence agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and the Military Intelligence. But nothing concrete has been done so far. A senior army officer posted in Kashmir says that often various agencies don’t share information due to ego issues.
The Home Ministry claims that as compared to last year, civilian casualties in Assam have reduced by six percent while casualties among security personnel have come down by 37 percent. But, perhaps, the ministry has chosen to ignore the fact that in the last month alone, extremist group ULFA has conducted fifteen major operations in Assam, killing scores of Hindi-speaking people. It is a known fact that ULFA’s top leaders like Paresh Barua are based in Bangladesh where they run many businesses. But even after providing more than enough proofs to successive governments in Bangladesh, India has not been able to lay its hands on these leaders.
The number of naxalite-affected police stations in the country is increasing. Out of 12,476 police stations, 400 have come under the red shadow. This year till June, 209 people have died in 395 naxalite attacks. Prominent among them is the murder of JMM MP Sunil Mahato and a bid to blow up the vehicle carrying former Andhra CM, N Janardhan Reddy. MOS Home, Sri Prakash Jaiswal admits that till 2007, 1605 crores have been released for tackling naxalites in eight affected states. Says Mohammaed Salim of the CPI (M): “The naxal problem is a socio-economic problem but it is also true that the government has not done enough. Naxalites are now touching Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.”
Even an extradition treaty with Pakistan hangs in balance. The Home Ministry says it is Foreign ministry’s job. As a result, people like Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Masood Azhar, and Abdul Karim Tunda are roaming free. And the Home Minister says that India is a big country.
