What is the future of the Kashmiri Pandits?

What is the future of the Kashmiri Pandits?

“When a man is robbed of his belongings, kicked out of his home, and forced to leave his land where his ancestors had lived for thousands of years, it is very hard to imagine that he will continue to have faith in the human values of his tormentors and destroyers –even of his neighbours and countrymen at large, and even that of the people around the world,” he said.

“Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of Kashmir, have been kicked and destroyed before, but never have they been so grossly brutalised, victimised, and dehumanised as this time. The annihilation of Pandits happened while the government of India was watching and well aware of the dimensions of the tragedy taking place but chose to play soft with its perpetrators, Muslims, in the hope of winning the civil war in Kashmir one day,” he said.

Today, he continued, “Most of the Pandits pass time in the dreary, pigeonholed, futureless existence in Jammu. Thousands of men in mid-30s to mid-50s never go to work, as they have chosen to survive on government handouts given in lieu of the salary they would have earned if they had the proper conditions to work in Kashmir. This psychological-self-annihilation is the worst price the Pandit community is paying at the hands of the civil war. It will take generations before Kashmiri Pandits of Jammu and Kashmir will regain purposefulness, confidence, and cheerfulness in their lives. Although Kashmir will continue to remain under India, its past social and cultural atmosphere will never reemerge. Kashmiri Pandits have to accept the fait accompli of the situation the events have thrown them into. They are the sideshow of the sideshow in this insane and ancient drama played between Muslims and Hindus. Kashmir cannot become their home in the same way as it was before.”

He added, “How can a Kashmiri Pandit return to a place where his fellow Kashmiri Pandits have been murdered, many of their houses have been burnt, by a majority community who hates them? Even though Kashmir will continue to remain a part of India, it is no longer a home of the Kashmiri Pandits. It would make a lot of sense for Kashmiri Pandit organisations like Panun Kashmir to withdraw from the cause of returning Pandits to Kashmir and re-channel their energies and financial resources to the placement of young Kashmiri Pandits in jobs, helping in the education of the destitute children, and the creation of international networking for the sustenance of the Pandit identity and ambition

NIA files chargesheet against 24 Kerala Islamic terrorists for training Kerala youth for terror

NIA files chargesheet against 24 for training Kerala youth for terror

TNN Feb 16, 2011

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The National Investigation Agency today filed chargesheet in the Kashmir terror recruitment case in which youth from Kerala were indoctrinated and recruited for jehadi traning by Lashkar-e-Taiba agents.

The chargesheet which was filed in a designated court in Kochi lists 24 accused. The main accused is K V Abdul Jaleel, who hails from Kannur. He is said to be an activist of the ultra-Islamic National Development Front which later merged to form the Popular Front of India. Some of the other accused named by the NIA are Pakistan national Wali Abdul Rahman and Sarfraz Nawaz, a keralite. Both of them were LeT operatives.

The chargesheet claimed that the conspiracy behind the terror recruitment extended beyond Indian borders and had links with some of the neighbouring countries. The youth were weaned away from their
homes in the guise of religious training and taken to places like Hyderabad where they were introduced to jehadi literature.

The terror trail came to light after the death of four Malayalee youth in an encounter with security forces in Kashmir in October 2008. They were identified as Mohd Fayaz of Kannur, Abdul Rahim of Malappuram, Rimon alias Mohd Yasin – a convert from Christianity – from Ernakulam and Fayeez of Kannur.

Investigation revealed that Bangalore blasts case accused Tadiyantavide Naseer who is also an accused in the case had taken the youth initially to Hyderabad where they were prepared ideologically and then sent across the border for weapons training. The first hits came from Mohd Jaleel, a painter, who had received phone calls from the militants while they were caught in the encounter. He led the cops to Faisal, the man who had taken Mohd Fayaz from his home in September 2008 on the pretext of a job in Bangalore.

Subsequently, it came to light that Faisal was one of the main recruiting agents for the LeT and is believed to have taken at least 100 men, mostly from Kannur, to Bangalore and Hyderabad for induction in terror. But the state government claimed that the figures were exaggerated.