Numbers Behind Narratives: RTI Revelation on KP Killings

A protest by Kashmiri Pandits – Picture Credits: PTI | For representational purposes only.

ON a recent train journey to mainland, a noted Kashmiri activist was looking at the scenery when a heavy accusation was hurled at him: “Hazaroon Hindu logon ko apne mara wahah” (You killed thousands of Hindus there).

This was a fellow passenger who wanted to get into a heated-discussion with a Kashmiri traveller.

“Like majority Indians today, the accuser was made to believe that the number of Hindus killed in Kashmir in 1990s was too big a number,” the activist said. “So I decided to counter him by asking how many he thinks were killed in Kashmir.”

Initially, he said, it was 5000, then 10,000 and then the number was 20,000.

“The number did not matter because the hyperbole had worked,” the activist recalling his train interaction said. “This is how misinformation campaign and propaganda has been made against Kashmiri Muslim (KM)s by the media and other rightwing Hindu groups.”

However, this peddled narrative was lately busted by a Right to Information Act (RTI).

In response to a query raised by RTI activist PP Kapoor from Haryana’s Samalkha, a Jammu and Kashmir Police officer posted in Srinagar informed that as many as “89 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in attacks since inception of militancy in 1990”.

“It should be an eye-opener for those who have always blamed KMs for thousands of KP killings,” the activist said.

The RTI has further revealed that 1724 civilians were killed by militants in Kashmir in the past three decades. Out of these, more than 1600 were Muslims. Kapoor said that KPs comprise nearly 5% of those killed by militants in Kashmir.

These new revelations have generated a fresh debate on the whole KP issue.

Some KP groups have been saying that a large number of people from their community were killed in 1990 which forced them to migrate from Kashmir valley. Even after 1990, there were some incidents of KP killings. Those were the people who had stayed back post the 1990 migration. Many of them were killed in Wandhama Ganderbal, Sangram Pora Budgam and Nadimarg Shopian between 1995 and 2004.

“After Nadimarg massacre, wherein 24 Kashmiri Hindus were killed, a notion was created across Indian states that thousands of Pandits were killed in Kashmir in 1990s and even after that,” the activist quoted above said. “While every single killing is condemnable, the same shouldn’t be exaggerated, weaponised and used to demonise the KM community.”

Background of RTI

RTI activist Kapoor said that he wanted to clear the notion created by the BJP government and RSS leaders about the “thousands of Kashmiri Pandits massacred in the valley”.

“Since Kashmir administration has given us this information under the RTI application, we take it as authentic figures,” Kapoor told FPK. “We’ve no reason to challenge these figures unless anyone will come forward with more factual figures.”

But in the same report, Sanjay Tickoo of Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samidhi rubbished the findings.

“We’re already working on the factual figures,” Kapoor said. “KPs were killed in hundreds. My organisation has also sought the same details under RTI based on the FIR lodged in every police station since 1989. We got the reply along with the FIR numbers and name of the persons killed, but we haven’t made it public because we’re still working on it.”

Rather than investigating the killings and serving justice, said another KP leader Satish Mahaldar, it won’t be surprising if tomorrow the government says that no Kashmiri Pandit has been killed.

However, Kapoor said the government is bound to provide only “authentic information” under RTI.

These findings, notably, came at a time when Kashmir saw a spate of civilian killings including Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and mostly Muslims.

The revelations have further rebutted the narrative created by a section of media and political parties like BJP and its allies. The groups like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal , RSS and many other NGOs affiliated with rightwing BJP for the last 31 years had been portraying the KP killings in Kashmir as “genocide” and “ethnic-cleansing”.

“Since this telling RTI reply is coming from the government itself, they must brief media and clear that whatever was being said by the authorities on KP killings from time to time was wrong,” said Ali Mohammad Sagar, a senior leader of National Conference. “They should stop defaming Kashmiri Muslims so that the hatred in the hearts of people outside Kashmir will end.”

Back in the day when Sagar was a prominent minister in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Omar Abdullah government had revealed that 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants since 1989 while 24,202 families were among the total 38,119 families which migrated out of the Valley due to turmoil.

Replying to a question from then People’s Democratic Party member Syed Basharat Bukhari, Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla had told the JK Assembly on March 23, 2010, that “219 Pandits were killed in Kashmir from 1989 to 2004. From 2004, no killing of any person from the community [Kashmiri Pandits] took place till now.”

The minister said the government had also paid an ex gratia of Rs.1 lakh for each death. “Besides, an amount of Rs. 39,64,91,838 has been paid as compensation to the Pandits on account of damage to their properties since the eruption of militancy,” he said.

Even if the KP killings are 219 than 89, the activist accused of killing thousands of KPs during his train trip said, people across the country should be made aware of it, “so that Kashmiri Muslims won’t be targetted”.

Of Migration, Rehablitation

Data from a second RTI response – filed with the Office of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (J&K) by Kapoor – showed that 88 per cent of the 1.54 lakh people, or 1.35 lakh individuals, who fled the Valley in the face of rising violence and tension since 1990 – were Kashmiri Pandits.

As per the reply, Farooq Malik, a Public Information Officer of J&K Relief and Rehabilitation Organisation, informed that the KPs migrated from the JK in 1990 due to turmoil in the valley.

In response to a query related to facilities, including financial help being provided by the Centre and state government to migrant Kashmiri Pandits, it was informed that an amount of Rs 3,250 is being paid as assistance per month to every registered Kashmiri migrant besides ration comprising 9kg rice, 2kg atta and 1kg sugar.

When asked about the similar help to migrants of other faiths, J&K Relief and Rehabilitation Organisation clarified, “Neither the funds are being provided on community basis nor the expenditure is made on community basis” adding “there is uniform expenditure on admissible components”.

The second RTI findings have also busted the longstanding narrative about the KP migration.

In Political History of Kashmir, M Rasgotra writes that in year 1990, “300,000 Pandits- men, women and children- fled the Valley under threat of the terrorists’ guns and poured into hastily-organised refugee camps in Jammu and other places”.

Countering Rasgotra’s claims, noted historian Khalid Bashir Ahmad writes in his celebrated “Kashmir Exposing the myth behind the narrative” book: “According to the census of 1981, the total population of Hindus in Kashmir (including non-Kashmiris) was 124.078. Given the decadal growth of the community from 1971 to 1981 as 6.75 percent, their population in 1991 would have been 132,453.”

According to Khalid, the total number of Pandits who left the valley in 1990 is about 124,453.

On Page 71 in his Kashmir book, Prof. Sumantra Bose also notes that approximately 100,000 of the total Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley during the 1990s.

Based on the average decennial growth rate in JK as a whole, the 2011 report titled “Kashmir: The Pandit question” also reveals that the total number of KPs living in the valley before 1990 was about 160,000 to 170,000.

These findings deflate the number of “700,000” as representing the number of Kashmiri Pandit departures after 1989-1990 as incredible.

“The government has contested the figures about Pandit killings as well as the figures on migration much to the disappointment of the community,” said senior scribe Zahir-ud-Din. “The state government has disclosed on the floor of the legislative assembly that a total of 1,42,202 migrants were registered with the Revenue and Relief Ministry.”

Kapoor, however, has claimed the RTI response omitted details on the number of Kashmiri Pandits rehabilitated, or re-settled since – a key demand of parties in J&K (and major opposition outfits) and a cornerstone of the BJP’s arguments for the contentious scrapping of Article 370 two years ago.

However, in March 2021, junior Home Minister G Kishan Reddy told Parliament 3,800 migrants had returned since the ’90s to jobs provided by the central government. In November last year, the other Junior Home Minister, Nityanand Rai, told Parliament 1,678 migrants had returned since Article 370 was scrapped in August 2019, to take up jobs under the same scheme.

The difference between the numbers who migrated and those returning was pointed out by Farooq Abdullah, whose National Conference passed a resolution. Without naming any party, he said, “Big promises were made by those treating you as a vote bank. They have not fulfilled a single promise.”

Before Kapoor, it was a Delhi-based news channel that had filed two RTI applications with the Department of Jammu & Kashmir Affairs under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

In the first RTI, the number of Kashmiri Pandits being killed, cases lodged and their progress was asked. The response was: “The information is not available with the undersigned CPIO and might be available with the State Government of J&K.”

The Second RTI application asked about the number of Kashmiri Pandits who are left in the Valley and the number of those rehabilitated. The Centre, instead,  identified three major schemes for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits – Monthly Cash Relief/Dry Ration, Prime Minister’s Relief Package 2008 & Prime Minister’s Dev Package 2015.

Pertinently, a committee headed by M.L. Koul, the then Finance Commissioner, Planning and Development Department, was formed to prepare an action plan for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants to Kashmir.

In its report submitted to the government in 1997-98, the committee recommended a package of Rs.2,799.11 crore for the return of migrants.

Years later, as the KP question remains hanging in balance, the BJP government decided to make accommodation at several places in Kashmir valley for the interested migrant Kashmiri pandits to return last year.

One junior minister was also sent to Kashmir for the foundation stone of the 40-crore transit camp, which will accommodate 336 Kashmiri Pandit migrant families. It’s the step taken by the Narendra Modi government for those migrant Kashmiri Pandits who want to return and live in Kashmir peacefully, he said.

However, the activist who faced the blunt KP question during his train trip calls it a political stunt.

“This unresolved KP issue has been working well for Delhi since 1990s,” he said. “Certain issues should remain hanging in balance for whipping passions during elections. No wonder even KPs have come to believe now that they have become toys for politicians now.”

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