Previously I discussed the thesis of Ding Gang, a well-connected Chinese writer on geopolitics, who wrote last fall that he believed that Indian Muslims, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, were less extreme, less violent, less prone to engaging in terrorist acts, and that he attributed this to the “moderate” side of Hinduism, which kept Muslims to a large extent satisfied, and certainly not eager to take part in terrorism.
By way of response, I gave a list of many serious terrorist attacks carried out by Indian Muslims. I also noted that the most devastating attacks by Indian Muslims took place in Kashmir, and that much of the news from that region has not always penetrated into the Western consciousness. One reason is that the government, and media, of India may not wish it to be known how poorly they have defended their own — that is, Hindus — in Kashmir. For the killings of the Pandits have been particularly gruesome.
Here is what the Pandits endured in the pogrom of 1990:
The days that followed the night of January 19, 1990 saw Kashmiri Pandits being killed in scores every day. Atrocities against KPs had become the order of the day. Everywhere in Kashmir, from Budgam to Brijbehara, from Kupwara to Kanikadal, there was hardly a day when Kashmiri Pandits were not being tortured and killed. The forms of torture ranged from the gouging out of eyes, to cutting off of genitals, to burning bodies with cigarette butts and even chopping off body parts — all were used by Muslims killing Pandits. Sarwanand Kaul Premi, a noted Brahmin scholar, had nails hammered into his forehead.. BK Ganjoo was killed in his home and his wife was asked to eat the rice soaked in his blood. Sarla Bhat, a nurse, was gang-raped before being killed and her naked body was thrown on the street. The killers of Ravinder Pandita of Mattan danced over his body. The bodies of two Pandits, Brijlal and Choti, were tied to a jeep in Shopian and dragged for 10 km.
Girja Tikoo, a school teacher in Bandipora, was gang-raped before being killed. There are hundreds of such stories. Meanwhile, the meek and feeble Indian state looked the other way. A notorious terrorist named Bitta Karate alone killed more than 20 Pandits and had no shame accepting the same. …More than a thousand Pandits were killed, tortured and raped within a few days.
