Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 23, 2005
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=101&page=5
Introduction: India Inc. and RSS chip in relief
The brutal and cold-blooded murder of ten
Hindus in Rajouri district on the midnight of October 9, 2005, is a grim reminder
of the ongoing genocide of the native minority in Jammu & Kashmir. And
the disgraceful near-total blackout of this news by the media is proof, if
any were needed, that Kashmiri Hindus will remain orphaned in their struggle
for survival in their own homeland if they do not change their approach towards
their oppressors.
This is the second such atrocity this year,
and the previous incident in which five Hindu men and one woman had their
throats slit in a grim parody of the ritual of halal, whereby sanctified meat
is obtained for food, was also blacked out by a media conspiracy of silence.
What is particularly shocking about the current incident is that it has been
executed in the immediate wake of Kashmir's killer earthquake, at a time when
people were literally struggling to crawl out of danger themselves and pull
their near and dear ones out of the rubble and debris that brought whole hillsides
down in one frightening apocalyptic moment.
Security agencies believe the atrocities were
committed by foreign jehadis who walked in from Pakistan, belying Islamabad's
pious claims of having dismantled the camps. The fact, as is apparent, is
that the terror factories are alive and kicking, and their ambition of ethnic
cleansing the Indian side of the border unchanged. Pakistan's sharp reaction
to Indian offers of joint relief operations are desperate measures to prevent
exposure of the locations of its terror factories, and many Indian citizens
think poorly of Dr. Manmohan Singh's generous aid to a country that does not
put the war-of-a-thousand-cuts on hold even in the midst of such a grim natural
calamity.
Those who descended upon Budhal tehsil, Rajouri,
on midnight Saturday and brutally slaughtered ten members of two Hindu families
had certainly never tasted the milk of human kindness (Pioneer, October 11,
2005). Unfazed by the proclamation of Hizbul Mujahideen supremo and United
Jihad Council chairman Syed Salahuddin of a temporary suspension of militant
operations in the quake-ravaged areas (Budhal was Rajouri's worst hit area
with more than 100 houses collapsing), the heavily armed militants probably
availed of the quake-induced confusion to reach Rajnagar in Budhal tehsil
unmolested around 11 p.m.
The male members of Munshi Ram's family were
separated and their throats slit one by one. Munshi Ram's two sons were thus
murdered before his eyes, before he himself was killed; his brother and his
nephew also met a similar gory end. According to reports, survivors told the
police that after these gruesome killings, one criminal had the gall to telephone
the local police station in Kotranka and say they were leaving "gift
packets" for them.
This same group then went to Gabbar village
in the same tehsil and killed four male members of the family of Kartar Singh;
one of his sons was critically injured and it remains to be seen if he will
survive this ordeal. Two other villagers died in what appears to have been
a killing spree allegedly organised by Abu Usman, a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen
Peer Panjal Regiment (HMPPR). Police suspect that the killings may have been
planned on suspicion that the nine men were informers. This belief has been
strengthened by the recovery of a bullet-ridden decomposed body in Mardwaha-Daccan
area of Doda district.
This makes a total of 12 dead bodies in 24
hours! It is obvious that the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus is not going
to stop as neither media nor politicians are willing to draw attention to
the "communal" nature of the assaults. Any fair-minded person can
see that the genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh and Pak-coveted Kashmir is part
of a systematic design to "purge" these regions of their respective
Hindu minorities. Sadly, both national and international human rights watchdogs
are complicit in these murders.
Like the Jews of Nazi Germany, Kashmiri Hindus
will have to help themselves first before the nation and the world at large
acknowledge their plight. Pandits who fled for their lives nearly 17 years
ago have not got peace or honour in India; asking remaining Hindus to quit
the Valley and hand the jihadis a great victory is adding insult to injury.
Hence the issue of leaving or staying should be left to those who have to
make this painful decision. But Hindus who have left the Valley owe it to
themselves and their future generations (if any) to introspect why things
have come to this pass.
At the very least, they must immediately halt
the slavish cultural surrender to Islamic fundamentalism that they have practised
for generations, with little benefit to themselves. It is high time Kashmiri
Hindus woke up to their Hindu identities (which terrorists have never forgotten),
became community-minded, and re-Hinduized themselves.
