[Reader-list] "We were mute spectators"-Omar Abdullah

[rashneek kher]

*A Times Now Report by Mir Fareed
*Two decades after the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, National
conference President Omar Abdullah has spoken up, saying that Muslims
including him shouldn't have been mute spectators during the exodus.

"It is a fact that the majority of us - and I include myself in it - the
majority of us Kashmiris remained mute spectators when the Kashmiri Pandits
left. And even though now we may want to talk about their return, at that
time perhaps we did not do as much as should have been done," said Omar on
Thursday (May 15).

While the timing of his statement is questionable, what cannot be discounted
is the fact that this is the first time a mainstream Kashmiri politician has
spoken so strongly about the plight of  Kashmiri Pandits.

Whether it's Rajya Sabha ticket that Omar is eyeing or a sudden prick of
consience, the feeling of being refugees in their own country is not a one
that the Pandits are likely to forget soon.

At the height of militancy in Jammu & Kashmir in 1990, propaganda from
Pakistan laced with the militancy of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation front
forced lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits out the valley leaving thousands homeless,
and forcing them into exile.

In his statement, which first appeared on his blog, Omar Abdullah even
chatises himself for not speaking up on the genocide, lamenting the fact
that none of them stood up and had the courage to say the atrocities must
stop.

"It's so easy to say that we"ll lay down our lives to bring Kashmiri Pandits
back to the valley and I appreciate the sentiment. Pity that sentiment was
missing when our mosques were being used to drive these people out. None of
us said this is wrong and the Kashmiri Pandits had every right to continue
living in the valley. We were mute spectators either mute in agreement or
mute in abject fear, but mute none the less," he writes.

While this is the first time a mainstream Kashmiri politician has spoken so
strongly on the plight of these Kashmiri Pandits, Omar's sentiments will not
make the Kashmiri Pandits forget the feeling of being refugees in their own
country, just yet.


-- 
Rashneek Kher
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com