Jammu, 28 Mar; The US based International Commission on Human Rights & Religious Freedom (ICHRRF) held its first hearing on the issue of Genocide of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits on Sunday evening. The Commission took suo motto notice and cognizance of the ethnic cleansing of Hindus of Kashmir followed by their human rights violations in exile. It invited some prominent figures of the Kashmiri Pandit community along with the victims of genocide to testify before the Commission and give their statements on the burning issue through the virtual mode. Consequent upon the screening of the film, The Kashmir Files, there has been a global awakening and interest about the exile of Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland. The Commission is headed by Prof. Ved Nanda, an authority on international law and human rights. Ved P. Nanda is a distinguished university professor and Thompson. G. Marsh Professor of Law at the University of Denver, US where he founded the International Legal Studies Program in 1972 and now directs the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law. Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo, senior BJP & KP leader, human rights activist and an author was also invited to present his statement about the case of genocide of the Hindus of Kashmir. In his statement, Chrungoo maintained that there was always a historical intent of ethnic cleansing against the Kashmiri Hindu community in the Kashmir valley. In order to prove his statement, he quoted and forwarded a number of documentary evidences before the commission. Chrungoo said that it was in 1931 that the Hindu community of Kashmir was subjected to a severe genocidal action in the valley of Kashmir at the hands of Muslim fundamentalist and political forces. Thereafter, Sheikh Abdullah, the tallest leader of the then Muslim Conference (presently National Conference) in 1933 in a speech at Tragpora in North Kashmir, asked his cadres to remember that ‘the task of the Muslim Conference & Muslims was to turn out the Hindus from Kashmir’. This is recorded in the files of the political department of the then Maharaja’s government in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. “In February 1986, as many as 46 temples of Hindus were burnt in the valley by the Muslim mobs followed by the destruction of Hindu properties in entire Kashmir. The historical intent of ethnic cleansing of Hindus was accomplished by using the instrument of terrorism against the Hindu community in Kashmir valley. Selective killings of Kashmiri Pandits accompanied by communal sloganeering targeting Hindus in general and their women-folk in particular were raised by the mobs to threaten the miniscule minority community living in the valley.
