10th anniversary of Wandhama Massacre

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It was a night when most men in Kashmir were in prayer. On this fateful night when Shab-e-Qadar was being observed in Kashmir, a group of terrorists killed 24 Kashmiri Pandits-men, women and children in place called Wandhama (a small village near Ganderbal, Srinagar). Even sucklers weren't spared. It has been 10 years now. While GoI, Courts, Human Rights Bodies and Civil society did everything possible tobring justice to the victims of Bilkis Bano case, I am afraid no attempts have been made to provide justice to the victims of this case. My fingers tremble on my key board, I am sorry but for once I can cry and not write. My beloved nation deserves kudos for treating Pandits in the way it has.

I am ashamed of belonging to a country in which justice is the privelege of Muslims alone.

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."

US Congressman writes to PM Manmohan Singh on Pandit's Plight

U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) today drafted a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India asking his government to help safeguard the properties of Kashmiri Pandits in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). An insurgent uprising in 1989 resulted in the mass exodus of over 350,000 Kashmiri Hindu minorities, or Pandits, from their ancestral homes in the valley of Kashmir. The insurgency quickly degenerated into an Islamic terrorist struggle with support from several international terrorist organizations.

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Congressman Pallone was contacted by many of his constituents who were concerned about the unilateral acquisition of their ancestral lands by the J&K government.

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Pallone in his letter indicated concern for what the Government of India is doing to adequately rehabilitate the Pandits. “Not much help has been provided to remaining Pandits in Kashmir by the State government or the civil society, and even those that remain, most are starting to leave the valley.” Pallone continued, “The situation is further exacerbated by J&K government’s efforts to appropriate lands owned by Pandits when instead Pandits should be encouraged to retain their lands and even expand their land holdings. In fact, the State government could facilitate return of Pandits, who are state subjects, by encouraging them to buy land in the valley through attractive financing.”

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Following is the copy of the letter (please click to enlarge) :

Hindustan Times

US Congressman Frank Pallone

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Source: IAKF & Hindustan Times

Bribe,Murder & Militants-Congress Chief of J&K(Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed)

Who's this Dr Tabbasum?
From Ahmed Ali Fayyaz (Daily Excelsior)

SRINAGAR, Jan 17: Immediately after the Independent MLA Shoaib Lone took objection to the arrest of driver Altaf Noorani and alleged that the bribe of Rs 40,000 had been actually demanded and received by the Education Minister Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed's wife on June 22, 2007, Police and intelligence agencies have begun to delve deep into the accused woman's background.

According to official sources, Police agencies have learned that Peerzada Sayeed had married the wife of a slain militant within a year of the death of his first wife in 1998-99. He had no issue from his first wife who belonged to his Kokernag locality in Anantnag district. Tabbasum happens to be the daughter of one-time JKPCC Secretary Abdul Aziz Tourist who had in his lifetime managed to get her a special seat for MBBS course with the help of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983-84.

After getting the job of an assistant surgeon in J&K Health Department, she developed good relations with the seniormost JKLF militant commanders in 1989-90. It was in the first year of insurgency in J&K that Dr Tabbasum married senior JKLF commander Pervez Billa, who lived in Chhattabal locality of Srinagar. While she became the mother of a male child, Pervez was captured and killed by militants of Hizbul Mujahideen on the allegation of having killed the outfit's "Intelligence Chief" Mamoon Rasheed as also the father of another top functionary of the organisation, namely Firdaus Kirmani, both residents of Chhattabal area.

Tabbasum's son from her militant husband, who is now 17-year-old, has been living with her and Peerzada after she married him in 1999. Later, she also became the mother of a male child from Peerzada. Four years back, she has been posted in Kashmir chapter of Red Cross, though officials have learned that she has never been on duty during this period. They say that she had been recommended for a course in anaesthesia but due to her preoccupation with the husband Minister's work, she refused to undertake the training. They have also learned that she had been taking keen interest in the Minister's official files and his public relations.

After his dismissal from service and admission into PDP, a former Director of Rural Development Department is said to be targeting the Minister's wife than the Minister for the corruption in which Peerzada was "neckdeep" according to former Chairman of J&K State Accountability Commission Justice R P Sethi. SAC has, later, absolved Peerzada of the charges levelled against him in Panchayat Ghar Electrification Scam.

Even when Peerzada was a Minister and he failed to stop a Srinagar newspaper's tirade against him in 2004, many people here believed that editor of the Urdu daily was kidnapped and silenced by activists of a separatist group on the instigation of his wife.

Kashmiri Pandits protest against Amnesty International

A worldwide initiative of the Kashmiri Pandit youth "Roots In Kashmir" protested against the international human rights group Amnesty International on the occasion of 60th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Sunday.

The group accused Amnesty of being biased in their human rights reports in the last two decades on the issue of Kashmir and Kashmiri Pandits.

"It has just failed to come to our rescue; Amnesty has failed to rise to the occasion wherein it could have played a greater role in raising the issues connected with the Kashmiri Pandit exodus," said a group member.

To escape persecution, more than 500,000 Kashmiri Pandits had to leave their home and hearths back in the Valley of which more than 50,000 refugees are still languishing in uninhabitable refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi.

"A blind attitude towards the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Pandit community speaks volumes of the discrimination against the Kashmiris," the group further said. The group further asks the Amnesty International to send its representatives to the Kashmiri Pandit camps in Jammu and conduct an on ground survey and a report on the present situation. They claimed Amnesty should also extend the same privileges to Kashmiri Pandits; as they do to other Internally Displaced People across the globe.

The Hindustan Times

The Asian Age

The Hindu

State Times

Rashtriya Sahara

News also appeared at the following links:

1. Merinews

2. Kashmir Live

3. Headlines India

4. India Info

5. AOL News

6. The Hindu

7. Indian Express

8. Daily 1 World

9. E-ref

10. Kashmir News Service

11. Outlook

12. Merinews Blog

13. Congoo

14. The Asian Age

15. Inform

Rubiya Syed kidnapping case Yasin Malik among others appear in TADA court
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 3: The accused involved in the much publicized Rubiya Syed kidnapping case appeared in the Court of TADA today. However, all the cases including that of one lakh US dollar were adjourned because of the strike of the advocates.
The alleged accused appeared in the TADA court were Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) supremo Mohd Yaseen Malik, Showkat Ahmed Bakshi, Ali Mohd Mir, Javid Mir alias Nalka, Mehraj-ud-Din Sheikh, Mohd Iqbal Gandroo, Mohd Zaman Mir and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta-Karate.
Other accused Mohd Yaqoob Pandit, Wajahat Bashir Qureshi, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi and Mohd Rafiq alias Nanaji were absent and their names were exempted from hearing on the application filed on their behalf.
The most important case which was listed for hearing today was of kidnapping of Dr Rubiya Syed, daughter of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohd Syed.
The other listed cases were killing of five Air Force officials at Batmaloo on January 1990 and seizure of one lakh US dollars meant for the JKLF supremo.
It is worthwhile to mention here that the cases of kidnapping of Dr Rubiya Syed and killing of Air Force personals have been pending before the Court for the last more than 15 years as all the alleged accused involved in the cases were not appearing before the Court.

Pak sets free 4 hijackers
ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: Pakistan today freed four Palestinians convicted of the 1986 hijacking of an American airliner in Karachi that ended with the death of 22 people including an Indian flight purser Neerja Bhanot, who helped passengers aboard escape.
The hijackers, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, were set free from Adiala jail in Rawalpindi and put on an international flight to the Gulf region, local TV channels reported.
A group of Palestinians hijacked a Pan Am Boeing 747 carrying 400 passengers while it was being parked at the Apron in Karachi in September 1986. The cockpit crew escaped through the emergency hatch but senior flight purser Bhanot stayed on helping passengers escape.
Twenty-two people, including Bhanot, died when Pakistani commandos stormed the flight to end the 16-hour siege. Bhanot was awarded Ashok Chakra posthumously by the Indian Government. She was at that time the youngest and till date the only woman Ashok Chakra awardee.
The Palestinians were handed down the death penalty during the regime of late Gen Zia-ul-Haq for hijacking the plane. One of the hijackers, who was injured in the commando operation, died in jail.
The sentence of the others was later converted to life imprisonment in 1988 when slain Premier Benazir Bhutto was in power.(PTI)

Banished Kashmiris express grief at Benazir’s death - Aastha Manocha

Link: The Indian Express

New Delhi, December 28: Kashmiri Hindus who were forced by militancy to leave the valley more than 17 years ago have expressed their sorrow at the ‘dastardly killing’ of the ex-PM of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. A group of Kashmiri Hindus called Roots In Kashmir has expressed condolences with the people of Pakistan and reiterated that using violence or terrorism as an instrument of state policy can be counter productive.

‘It was waiting to happen’, said Aditya Raj Kaul, a member.

They have said that they regret that she didn’t stem the cancer of terrorism when she had the chance as the PM of her country rather in some of her speeches extolled the virtues of armed struggles and supported the Mujahids who were to cleanse the valley of so-called ‘infidels’.

‘It is sad that she was consumed by the same monsters who she had once nourished and supported. In her death lies a lesson not only for Pakistan but also for separatists who brazenly support the armed guerrillas in the valley’, they said while praying that her soul rests in peace.