Former R&AW chief A.S. Dulat, according to a report by The Telegraph, highlighted that returning to Srinagar in 1990 after an interval of four-to-five months came as a rude shock for Kashmir’s governor Jagmohan. Mr Dulat told the daily that Jagmohan had been Jammu & Kashmir’s governor till August 1989 but when he returned the following January, the atmosphere had changed beyond recognition.
Mr Dulat, who’s considered one of the foremost experts on J&K and insurgency, said: “The Kashmir that he (Jagmohan) came back to after four or five months, it was totally different from the Kashmir he had left. He was quite shaken himself.”
The movie ‘The Kashmir Files’, directed by Vivek Agnihotri and starring Anupam Kher in lead role, has created quite a stir as it is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in late 1980s. The former R&AW chief has not watched the movie and does not intend to. “I don’t see propaganda. And it is a propaganda movie,” Mr Dulat said.
When the V. P. Singh government came to power at the centre, Jagmohan had been reappointed as governor. In an unprecedented development that shook the country, in December 1989, Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Sayeed had been kidnapped and in exchange for her release, five JKLF terrorists had been freed.
Mr Dulat told The Telegraph that this development changed the atmosphere in Kashmir overnight. He was the Intelligence Bureau station chief in Kashmir at the time. “Overnight, many youngsters were convinced that independence for the state was just round the corner. There were celebrations in Srinagar like it was Diwali,” Mr Dulat said.
Mr Dulat, in a revelation that further taints the former governor’s legacy, said Jagmohan was quite relieved, in fact, when the Kashmiri pandit exodus from Kashmir began. “When these killings started, he didn’t want the pandits to bear the brunt of it. So once they started leaving, he was quite happy,” Mr Dulat said.
“It was a natural reaction. If they are leaving, ‘Good.’ There was no way that we could provide any protection to them because things were so bad,” he added.
Stressing how the kidnapping changed the Kashmir overnight which used to be peaceful before that, the former intelligence officer said: “Everything changed overnight. Till then, we used to move out freely in the city. I also travelled all over the state. But after the five people were released, everything went out of control and there was a lot of bloodshed.”
“I was there when it all began. It was pretty nasty times, you know, that winter of 1989-90,” Mr Dulat recalled.
“There’s no doubt about it that pandits were targeted. Like a lot of other people were targeted. And Muslims were targeted, very much so,” Mr Dulat is quoted as saying.
“The Pandit Exodus began soon after the killings in 1990. The more affluent in the community headed for Delhi and ones who had nowhere else to go went to camps that had been set up in Jammu. After Rubaiya’s kidnapping and the release of the (JLFK) guys and the new mood in the Valley, then the pandits felt more insecure and more of them left,” Mr Dulat said.
Kashmiri Muslims who could afford it also left for destinations like Delhi. They returned when the situation seemed to get better. Many more Muslims than pandits left – a large number. A lot were killed, he added.
Many pandits who chose to stay behind were “protected by Muslims”, Mr Dulat said, adding that pandits did stay back. “Even after the abrogation of Article 370, the pandits have not been targeted,” he said.
The former chief of premier intelligence agency, however, deplored the fact that very little was done for the pandits. And very few have felt safe enough to return to Kashmir. “Government after government has paid lip service to the idea of bringing the pandits back but it has not happened.”
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
