Kashmiri Pandits take part in a candle light protest against the killing of 3 persons including pharmacist ML Bindroo by militants, at Ghanta Ghar in Srinagar, Wednesday evening, Oct. 6, 2021.
Highlights
- Kerala Congress tweeted more Muslims than Pandits killed in Kashmir
- It said Kashmiri Pandits left Kashmir 'under the direction of then Guv Jagmohan who was an RSS man'
- 'The Kashmir Files' depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus after violence in late 80s
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hit back at the Congress over its remarks on Kashmiri Pandits. KJ Alphons, a Rajya Sabha MP, said that the grand old party and its partners are to be blamed for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Alphons stated that the situation in Kashmir has improved drastically after the Modi government scrapped Article 370.
"Congress and its allies created a situation in which the pandits couldn't live anymore; they were murdered, there was a genuine fear for their lives, so they left...things have improved dramatically after the revocation of Article 370," Alphons said while responding to the Kerala Congress's tweets on the film 'The Kashmir Files'.
"Congress doesn't understand history, they have hugely distorted versions. Everyone knows that over 1.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits were driven out on communal grounds, by the ruling dispensation, which was Congress or its supported governments," he chided the Congress.
Congress' Kerala unit in a series of tweets sought to blame the Bharatiya Janata Party for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and alleged that the issue 'suits BJP's propaganda to create a fake outrage for electoral gain'.
The party claimed that in 17 years (1990-2007), 399 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in terrorist attacks, while the number of Muslims killed by terrorists in the same period was 15,000. Directly attacking the BJP, the Kerala Congress said that the Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley en masse "under the direction of the then Governor Jagmohan who was an RSS man".
"The migration started under the BJP-supported VP Singh government," it said. "BJP-supported VP Singh government came to power in December 1989. Pandits’ migration started the very next month, in January 1990. BJP did nothing and continued supporting VP Singh till November 1990," it added.
Written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri and produced by Zee Studios, the film depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir following systematic killings of people from the community by Pakistan-backed terrorists. It stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi among others.
Meanwhile, several BJP-ruled states including Gujarat and Haryana have made the film 'The Kashmir Files' tax-free which was released on March 11.
READ MORE: 'The Kashmir Files': Kerala Congress tweets 'facts', blames BJP for Kashmiri Pandits' exodus
