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'THE KASHMIR FILES': The film's depiction of true stories of cruelty

The film 'The Kashmir Files' has awakened thousands of people to the grim reality of Kashmir and the brutal genocide that has been concealed or denied for many years. Some are even having difficulty accepting that the film is based on genuine tales and that the victims of the incident were never heard. The film's dialogues, such as "The truth of Kashmir is so true that people may find it incredible," have disturbed widely held beliefs.

The Political Failure:

The film, which is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide, opens in 1990, when Farooq Abdullah, the then-CM of Jammu and Kashmir, tendered his resignation. Abdullah lost control in 1984, most likely after attending a meeting in Kashmir and sharing the platform with Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik. Later, Ghulam Mohammad Shah, who was backed by the Congress party, took over as state Chief Minister from his brother-in-law Farooq Abdullah.

Shah's government, backed by the Congress party, was accused of promoting an Islamist agenda in the Valley. Under Shah's administration, Islamists were granted political freedom; Hindu temples were burned, mosques were built in their place, and slogans such as 'Islam Khatre me hai' (Islam is in danger) were hoisted. As Congress dropped its backing from the Shah-led administration, the state was placed under President's rule in 1986. Furthermore, the President's control was annulled in November after the infamous Rajiv-Farooq deal cleared the way for the NC-Congress alliance to take over the administration. The coalition ministry led by Farooq Abdullah was sworn in once more, plunging the state into a bog of uncertainty.

According to reports, the Islamization of Jammu and Kashmir began in the 1980s, when the government led by Sheikh Abdullah changed the names of over 300 areas in Kashmir to Islamic ones. Since then, Kashmiri Hindus have been actively targeted and referred to as 'Mukhbirs,' or Indian military informants. They were included on the target list of Islamist terrorist organisations.

The film 'The Kashmir Files' centres around the family of Pushkar Nath Pandit, played by actor Anupam Kher, whose son is named on a hit list and then assassinated by terrorists, his daughter-in-law is killed in public, and his grandchild is shot in the head. The film's depiction of the family's agony raises the topic of how humans can be so cruel to one another in the name of religion. Here are nine occurrences are shown in the film and how they actually occurred.

The Real Heart-Wrenching Incidents:

  • Attack on a Srinagar High Court judge:
A sequence in the film depicts the terrified Hindu community of the Kashmir Valley following the assassination of a Srinagar High Court judge in open sight. This is from November 1989, when terrorists shot Kashmiri Pandit, retired Judge Nilakanth Ganjoo in broad daylight in Amira Kadal's Maharaj Bazaar. Justice Ganjoo was being monitored after he sentenced Maqbool Bhat, the leader of the JKLF, to death for his involvement in the murder of Amar Chand, a CID Police Sub-Inspector of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, from Nadihal village in the Baramulla district.

JKLF commander Yasin Malik confessed to killing Justice Ganjoo in an interview with BBC Hard Talk almost two decades later. Malik was overheard alleging that the JKLF had shot Justice Nilkanth Ganjoo as he announced Maqbool Bhat's execution. According to accounts, the organisation also assassinated Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, a lawyer by profession and the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Kashmir Chapter, in September 1989.
The assassination of two prominent members of the Kashmiri Pandit community had cast doubt on the state's law and order situation. The terrified Hindus had begun to be seriously concerned about the safety of their lives.
  • All Hindus have been warned to leave Kashmir immediately, according to the publication Al-Safa:
The film depicts the Hindu community's threats to flee the Kashmir valley as a response to escalating Islamic radicalism and terrorism in the region. The scene in Kashmir Files in which Hindu women are purposefully harassed by Muslim ladies and little children is traumatic and heartbreaking for the spectators. The Hindu population lacked access to basic survival necessities such as food and water. No grocery stores in the valley allowed Kashmiri Hindu women to enter and buy food. Those Hindus who arranged for grains or opened grocery stores for the community were either slain or threatened with expulsion.

In the film, a tiny boy around 5-7 is heard yelling slogans against the Hindu community. "Al Safa, Hindu Dafa," he yells in front of a diplomat's (Mithun Chakraborty) automobile, as Hindu women scream for help. The scene is a true pick with a bit of cinematic licence from 1990 when Srinagar-based publications named Aftab and Al Safa published threats from the Islamist organisation Hizbul Mujahideen threatening all Hindus to leave Kashmir immediately.

Al Safa, a famous Urdu daily in Srinagar, told the Pandits to flee the valley within hours if they wanted to save their lives and honour. A slew of similar-type warnings has been muddled by loudspeakers mounted atop mosque spires. Anti-India protests were visible on the streets, with people enraged with rage, hatred, and vengeance. Fearful Pandits had no one to turn to for assurances that they would be secure for the rest of their lives. Wall posters with big letters proclaiming Kashmir as the "Islamic Republic of Kashmir" became prevalent throughout the Valley. Every day, Radio Kashmir broadcasted the names of Kashmiri Pandits who had been assassinated by terrorists. However, the publications Al Safa and Aftab eventually denied claiming ownership of the claims and issued a correction.
  • Four Indian Air Force officers were killed, while ten others were injured:
Yasin Malik fired 40 shots at Indian Air Force troops who were waiting for their vehicle at the Rawalpora bus terminal on January 25, 1990. Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, Corporal DB Singh, Corporal Uday Shankar, and Airman Azad Ahmad were killed, while ten other IAF personnel were injured. According to accounts, bullets were fired from two to three automatic weapons and one semi-automatic handgun in the presence of one head constable and seven constables from the Jammu and Kashmir Police post, who did not respond.


Nearly 30 years after the brutal killing of four unarmed officers, the TADA court in Jammu, in the year 2020, filed charges against Yasin Malik and six others involved in the attack under Sections 302, 307, 3(3), 4(1) of the TADA Act 1987, and Section 7(27) of the Arms Act of 1959 read with Section 120.
  • Justification for the murder of Kashmiri Hindus:
In the Kashmir Files, a top journalist is shown posing at the 'Kashmir news' justifying the horrible murders of Kashmiri Hindus. According to the footage, "the Kashmiri Pandits, though in minority, were attempting to snare the benefits of the Kashmiri Muslims and were thus forced to quit the state."

The scene is a classic example from 2004 when the 'liberal' journalist Barkha Dutt contextualised the slaughter of Kashmiri Pandits. In the film, Barkha Dutt can be seen discussing how Kashmiri Pandits were relatively prosperous and had solid employment. She goes on to say that this has led to a developing animosity among the majority of Muslims. In 2004, after nearly ten years in journalism, Barkha Dutt aired a show called "Kashmiri Pandits: The Forgotten Minority," in which Dutt began the presentation by presenting ruined Kashmiri Pandit colonies and sound bites from persecuted Hindus.
"What all of this has produced is a terrible and persistent hatred," she later remarked. Personal connections between Hindus and Muslims have endured throughout the years, but the state's politics are utterly polarized along religious lines. In fact, some argue that if a plebiscite were held in Kashmir now, it would be worse than division since voting would be done along religious lines." When Barkha Dutt spoke of "friendship between Hindus and Muslims" and "politics of hate destroying that relationship," she openly supported Kashmiri rebels who wanted to blame Governor Jagmohan for the carnage. The initiative was designed to protect murderers like Yasin Malik of the JKLF from religious hatred.

Nobody mentioned the fact that the Hindu community's relative economic success was largely due to their investment in education, which resulted in good jobs.
  • Yasin Malik was backed by the administration and "intellectuals" at the time:
Farooq Abdullah, the then-Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, allegedly maintained close ties with the Islamist organisation JKLF and its leader Yasin Malik to maintain political control in Kashmir under the guise of Islamisation. He had tendered his resignation, which did nothing but add fuel to Islamist calls for 'Azad Kashmir.' Despite Malik's terrorist affiliations, former governments and the left-liberal media establishment attempted to depict him as a peace figure and Kashmir's saviour. Abdullah took the stage with Malik during a conference in Kashmir, claiming that he was there on behalf of the Congress Party to learn about the organization's thoughts.

Terrorists like Yasin Malik, as depicted in the film, received implicit backing and sanction from people in power and the 'intellectuals.' It is worth noting that in 2006, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Malik to a meeting at his official house in New Delhi. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also met with terrorists as part of his vital outreach to Jammu and Kashmir's political leaders, separatists, and other organisations. Pictures of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cheerfully greeting terrorist Yasin Malik have become one of the most disturbing images in recent memory.
Malik had also met with far-left anti-India propagandist Arundhati Roy, who has long been at the forefront of inciting Kashmiri youths to wage war against the Indian state. Pallavi Joshi, who plays one of the so-called 'intellectuals' in the film 'The Kashmir Files,' is depicted sharing camaraderie with militants in the shades of Roy in real life. Her exchanges such as "Sarkar to unki hai lekin system Hamara hai (It's our system and their government)" demonstrate how firmly ingrained the 'Left-liberal' ecology is with the government machinery.

Image Courtesy: OP India

It is worth noting that, following the repeal of Article 370 from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Abdullah stated that the Kashmiri people "do not feel or want to be Indian" and would prefer to be dominated by China rather than India. In addition, the Congress party in India had criticised the government's proposal on Article 370, which would have revoked the state of Jammu and Kashmir's unique status.
  • Woman forced to eat blood-soaked rice:
A woman is force-fed rice soaked in her husband's blood in one of the film's most heartbreaking moments, directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri. This is a replica of a heinous murder from 1990 when terrorists were looking for engineer BK Ganjoo, who was hiding in a rice barrel. He would be alive today if his whereabouts had not been betrayed to the terrorists by his own neighbours. Terrorists shot him dead after firing multiple shots into the rice barrel, leaving blood to stream out of the container. The blood-soaked rice was then force-fed to Ganjoo's wife.
  • Women were stripped naked and raped in public:
The film 'The Kashmir Files,' as previously said, concentrates upon one family and their tribulations during the 1990 Kashmir genocide. Pushkar Nath Pandit's (Anupam Kher) daughter-in-law is shown being undressed and brutalised in public. In actuality, however, many Kashmiri Pandit women were kidnapped, raped, and murdered. The shouts of Kashmir's Islamists openly said that they wanted 'their Kashmir' without Pandit males and only with their womenfolk. As they observed the region's rising Islamic militancy and terrorism, Hindu ladies were subjected to atrocities. Several Islamic militants who claimed to be morally superior in their jihad sexually raped them several times.
  • Girija Tickoo was tortured and sliced in two:
The killing of Sharda, Pandit's daughter-in-law, comes as a surprise in the film. The jihadists are shown delivering her alive to the mechanical saw machine, which cuts her right through the centre of her body. In truth, Girija Tickoo experienced this in June 1990. Tickoo was a Bandipora-born Kashmiri Hindu who worked as a laboratory assistant at a university in Kashmir Valley. Tickoo escaped with her family to Jammu in the aftermath of the JKLF's 'Azadi Movement,' spearheaded by Yasin Malik. One day, she received a phone call from someone claiming that the situation in the valley had improved and that she might return to collect her salary. She was assured of her safety, and the individual claimed the region was safe to visit.

Girija arrived in the valley to collect her salary on June 4, 1990 and met her local Muslim coworker at her home. She had no idea Jihadi militants were following her every move. Girija was abducted and taken to an unknown location from her colleague's home. Everyone, including her colleague and residents in the area, stood silently by while she was led away. Her body was discovered on the roadway in the terrible condition a few days after she was kidnapped. Her autopsy revealed that she had been gang-raped and tortured. Girija was severed from the centre of her body using a mechanical saw while she was still alive. Her family is still waiting for justice, as are hundreds of thousands of other Kashmiri Pandits whose suffering has been labelled as 'propaganda' by the 'liberal' media and society.
  • The 2003 Nadimarg massacre:
In another scenario, Vivek Agnihotri recreates the slaughter at Nadimarg hamlet in Jammu and Kashmir, and spectators are stunned to watch Hindus being shot at point-blank range one by one. On March 23, 2003, Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed 24 Hindu Kashmiri Pandits in the village of Nadimarg in Jammu & Kashmir's Pulwama District. Armed radicals disguised in bogus military uniforms took Hindus from their houses, lined them up, and shot them with automatic guns. The victims, 11 men, 11 women, and two tiny children, varied in age from 65 to two years. The officers stationed there fled the scene. The killers mutilated the victims' bodies, plundered their homes, and stole the jewellery off the dead women's bodies.

Conclusion:

The Kashmir Files is unquestionably a great, devastating depiction of the grim reality of Kashmiri Pandits that took nearly 32 years to emerge. The film, which is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide, was scheduled to be released in theatres on January 26, 2022, but due to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and elections, it was postponed. It has now been released and is being used successfully throughout India.
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