Members of Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora (GKPD) hold a protest demanding justice for the victims of exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, Saturday, March 12, 2022.
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
Congress appears to be embroiled in a major controversy involving the film 'The Kashmir Files'. Party's Kerala unit has tweeted some 'facts' about the Kashmiri Pandits' issue and alleged that it 'suited BJP's propaganda to create a fake outrage for electoral gain'.
In a long thread on Twitter, Kerala Congress 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.
It then claimed that the UPA government had in past worked to relocate Pandits and provided security to them. It said that the government built 5,242 tenements for Pandits in Jammu and also provided one-time assistance of Rs 5 lakh to each family in addition to student scholarships, assistance to farmers and welfare schemes worth Rs 1,168.4 crore.
Stating that the Pandits are victims of terrorism like other Kashmiris, it said, "Even in the 1948 communal riots after partition, over 1,00,000 Kashmiri Muslims were killed in Jammu, but there were no retaliatory killings of Pandits."
"BJP, which sheds crocodile tears for Pandits, did not bring them back to Kashmir or resettle them despite being in power for two terms at the centre and one term in Kashmir," it said.
Meanwhile, several BJP-ruled states including Gujarat and Haryana have made the film 'The Kashmir Files' tax-free which was released on March 11,
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.
