Khamosh Kashmiri خاموش کشمیری

Mohammad Sultan Bhat, a sarpanch (village head), who was shot dead by terrorists outside his home in Shopian in 2014. "Omertà is a code of honor that places importance on silence, non-cooperation with authorities, and non-interference in the illegal actions of others."  It is a myth that Jihadis did not target the Muslim Kashmiris. If we were to go by (conservative) official statistics, some 13,000 Muslim Kashmiris (not including Kashmiri policemen) were gunned down by the Jihadis. We need to understand that in terms of murders, kidnappings, rapes, loot, and humiliation at the hands of militants, the Muslim Kashmiris who stayed back suffered most, because they had to endure it for 26 years. And still do. No human rights activist talks of them.  News like this goes unnoticed. Muslim Kashmiris suffered the direct brunt of militancy for decades and are far more in number (this should be fairly obvious). Many Muslim Kashmiris also had to flee to Jammu/Delhi due to:...

In the last 30 years, the majority in Kashmir has been silenced by the barrel of the gun that Pakistan has aimed on Kashmir. Many prominent leaders and intellectuals of Kashmir who disagreed with Pakistan’s cross border terrorism or militant violence, have been silenced by bullets. Anyone among the intelligentsia who advocates peace has been gagged. But ironically, the perpetrator of violence in Kashmir has been projected as the victim of human rights abuse; violence and threats of violence have been presented as dissent. In none of the great democracies like the United States, or those in Europe, have terror acts especially sponsored by a rival state, been legitimized by calling it dissent. In a democracy, expression of dissent or disagreement is not possible amidst intimidation and extreme violence. But it is a travesty that the world press, which completely ignores or is not even aware of the history and context of Kashmir and violence in the region, has unwittingly come to just...

At the sham of a hearing by the US Congressional 'Sub'-Committee on Human Rights in South Asia, our cash-strapped neighbour Islamic Republic of Pakistan, used its cost-effective strategy of employing a bunch of cheap Hindu NRIs to attack ‘Hindu’ India, as if these  perennial direct beneficiaries of the Kashmir Conflict Industry have more than an ounce of credibility. This inconsequential sideshow, which majority of US Congress members skipped, was not hosted in this incestuous little forum with little influence on US foreign policy to 'defeat' India per se; no, it was merely meant to reassure Pakistani and Kashmiri jihad supporters back home and abroad that even after losing  badly in  the Battle of UNSC, the never-ending War was still on. As things stand today, Pakistan has far more pressing domestic affairs to attend, than the absence of 4G connectivity in the enemy state. Pakistan had been busy feeding the ‘ Kashmir Banega Pakistan’ steroid to its jihadi audi...