Khamosh Kashmiri خاموش کشمیری

Everyone is wiser after the event, including yours truly. When I look beyond the horror of the last few days of the Pahalgam terror attack that left 25 Hindus dead, I find recognizable patterns emerging from my own hazy memories of the past. There of course is the centuries-old undeniable pattern of Islamic terrorism against the Kuffar — a pattern that we have become so blasé about that we now consider it a “fundamental human right” for Muslims to behave in such an entitled, chauvinist, supremacist, fascist, and violent manner that would dwarf the Nazis of any age. However, in my grieving mind there are other puzzle pieces that fit into the larger picture, of not just recent Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks in the valley of Kashmir and of the stereotypical reaction from so-called Kashmiri “civil society” (sic), but also of my earliest recollections of land jihad in Kashmir, especially the Pahalgam area in my own Anantnag district. “Attack on Development” Pattern On the 20th of October...

1. Feb 21, 2014 : "Unidentified gunmen" shoot dead a 25-year-old PG Islamiyat student Wasim Mehraj Malla from Bagh-e-Islam Kraakshun Colony in North Kashmir's Sopore town. The Separatist Reaction: Silence 2. March 8 , 2014 : An 80 year old man Ghulam Muhammad Dar is shot dead by "unidentified persons" in his native village of Dogripora in Awantipora Town. The Separatist Reaction: Silence 3. March 14 , 2014 : A youth Farhat Ahmed Dar son of Ghulam Muhammad of Shahgund is killed in police firing at Naidkhai Sumbal shortly after Friday protests. The Separatist Reaction:  Street protests, stone pelting, calls for  hartal 4. April 19 , 2014 : PDP Sarpanch Mohammd Amin Pandit is killed in cold blood by Militants  at Gulzarpora in Awantipore in Pulwama district of South Kashmir. The Separatist Reaction: Silence 5. April 21 , 2014 : 24 year old Firdous Ahmad Mir is killed in cold blood by Militants along with his father Ghulam Nabi...

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...