WASHINGTON: The US-based non-profit, International Commission for Human Rights and Religious freedom (ICHRRF) has called upon the Government of India and the Government of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir to acknowledge and recognise the 1989-1991 atrocities on Kashmiri Hindus as an act of genocide.
The Commission exhorts other human rights organisations, international bodies and governments to step up to the plate and officially acknowledge these atrocities as an act of genocide. The world must listen to these profoundly moving stories, seriously introspect on the impact of their past silence and inaction out of political expediency and make proper recognition, it said.
International Commission for Human Rights and Religious freedom is a US based non-profit focused on upholding Human Rights and Religious Freedom through continuous monitoring, policy intervention and collaboration.
ICHRRF held a special public hearing on the issue of Kashmiri Hindu Genocide (1989-1991) on March 27, 2022, during which a number of victims and survivors of ethnic and cultural cleansing testified under oath and submitted evidence.
Profoundly heartbreaking, several Kashmiri Hindu victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing and exile from their homeland, courageously shared their traumatic stories of endurance, survival and recovery from atrocious human rights violations at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists that mirrored the Jewish Holocaust. Thousands of homes and temples were destroyed. Over 4,00,000 of Kashmiri Hindu men, women, and children were forced into exile by Islamic terrorists at gunpoint, ejected from their homes and everything they’ve known. Women were gang-raped, cut into two pieces with a saw and killed in the most brutal manner.
Now, this culture is on the brink of extinction after self-advocacy over the course of 32 years, has been unsuccessful. Those who chose to remain in their homeland did so in faith believing in the goodness of their neighbours. The victims and survivors affirmed hope, peace, nonviolence, and safety, and found themselves raped, tortured, and executed by radical Islamic terrorists. Abused corpses were denied cultural funeral traditions and desecrated in psychological warfare to intimidate and control the remaining masses, the statement said.
Having lived peacefully for thousands of years as an indigenous religious minority, the cry for help from these Kashmiri Hindus fell on deaf ears globally. While it was expected to a degree that each nation and media outlet chooses what and how much they report pertaining to global events, it was excruciatingly painful when politicians, neighbours, friends, classmates, and local police turned blind-eyes and deaf ears.
“These victims seek to rectify complicity and silence. They respectfully request recognition, acknowledgement, tribunals, justice and rehabilitation. Recognition is the first step in healing these traumas that impacted families socially, economically, medically and spiritually. This genocide should never be allowed to happen again,” the body said.
Kashmiri Hindu victims‘ request acknowledgement and recognition of the terrible crimes of ethnic cleansing, exile, and genocide. They also seek appointment of a commission of inquiry into the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus to prevent future atrocities.
Their demand includes holding the perpetrators and their backers legally accountable. All the perpetrators and those who abetted it, either by way of acts of omission or acts of commission must be identified, indicted, tried, and punished. Rehabilitation of the victims and survivors and safe zones to practice their faith and cultural traditions. Children should be able to grow and develop with their roots and learn their culture.
They have also demanded government financial assistance programmes to alleviate the plight of economically weak Kashmiri Hindu families and permission to establish a Kashmiri Hindu Holocaust Museum.
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