Official Promotion of Kashmir Files Made Pandit's Lives in Valley Unsafe: Report

A civil rights group, led by ex-Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, prepared the report after visiting the Valley.

The report said that a common perception in the Valley was that militancy would continue with local recruitment.

(Photo altered by Aroop Mishra)

The Concerned Citizens’ Group, in its 10th report released on Saturday, 16 April, said that the official promotion of the controversial Bollywood movie The Kashmir Files seeks to delegitimise the "Valley’s majority community’s own pain and suffering of three decades" and has made the lives of the Kashmiri Pandits there ‘very unsafe’.

“After the official promotion of the film The Kashmir Files, not only had the remaining Kashmiri Pandits become unsafe in the Valley, even mainstream politicians feared for their lives."

Concerned Citizens’ Group

The civil rights group, led by former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, prepared the report after the members paid a visit to the Kashmir Valley.

It stated:

"Civil society groups conveyed to us that the film — more ‘reelty’ than ‘reality’, as a leading academic put it — seeks to slander, vilify and delegitimise the Valley’s majority community’s own pain and suffering of three decades during which period tens of thousands of youths were killed.”

Communal Divide, Tense Atmosphere in the Valley: Report

The report added that the atmosphere has worsened in the Valley and communal hatred had significantly increased since the abrogation of Article 370. It stated that a common perception in the Valley was that militancy would continue with local recruitment.

The group stated that the political leaders in the Valley believed that the delimitation exercise was aimed to pitch one community against the other.

It said, “The political leaders…thought that the delimitation proposed…was tendentious and was aimed at polarisation of communities. They pointed out that the commission’s proposals upheld the principles of neither the population size, which would have given more constituencies to Kashmir division, nor accessibility, which would have favoured the outlying mountainous areas (referred to as Trans-Chenab) of Jammu, although these were both the recognised determining principles in aligning constituencies adopted by delimitation commissions at the national level.”

The report added that many in Jammu claim the delimitation report was the work of the BJP in Jammu and approved by the commission.

It added that citizens in Jammu have not accepted the downgrading of J&K as a Union Territory and this sentiment is shared by all communities in the region.

Media on a Tight Rein: Report

Regarding the role of media, the report said that the press is under an overwhelming pressure in the region. It said that the media is on a ‘tight leash’ and interaction between journalists are under intense surveillance.

They claimed that their personal details – like their names, bank account details and properties owned – are collected and they are coerced into stating their political ideology.

(With inputs from Indian Express.)