Resilience - 30 Years in Exile of Kashmiri Pandits - Book by KPCS 2019

Revised Edition
“This is a KPCS publication produced as a non profit, community initiative.

Copyright © 2019 [Kashmiri Pandit Cultural Society]. All Rights Reserved
Team at Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society (KPCS) would like to
thank each and every one who has contributed to this anthology
and helped highlight the resilience of the Kashmiri Pandits.
Special thanks to Sh Nitin Palan & Kamu Palan for their support
and to Palan Foundation for sponsoring this publication.
Editorial Team:
Anupama Handoo
Shafalika Bhan Kotwal
Revised Edition Edited By
Sonal Sher
Cover Design: Kashmea Wahi
©Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society (KPCS), 2019
KPCS Brochure Text v2.indd 1 07/10/2019 14:08

Contents
Title Author
Foreword Mrs. Anupama Handoo
1 The Exodus of Kashmiri Mr. S.K. Koul

Hindus
2 Kashmiri Pandit Exodus - Up Mr. Abhinav Dhar

and Close
3 Lost Childhood Dr Viny Kantroo
4 A visit back home: No Fairy Dr. Shivani Dudha

Tales
5 A painful memory of a Dr Chandan Kotwal

displaced Kashmiri Pandit
family
6 Scars of Childhood Mrs. Meenakshi Kaul
7 Mazhab nahi sikhata, aapas Dr. Natasha Dhar

main bair rakhna!
8 Unhealed wounds Mrs. Anu Dudha
9 Hatai kusi trath Mr. Praveen Sher
10 Tortured. Exiled. Survived. Mrs. Raynoo Mattoo
11 Kicked into Exile Mr. Sandeep Lahori
12 Witness Account Dr. Sanjay Raina
13 Life in Exile Dr. Shafalica Bhan

Kotwal
2

14 One life changing event Ms. Sonal Sher
15 The story of my Exile Mrs. Anupama Handoo
16 Refugee in my Own Land Dr. Urmi Kaul
17 Exodus – Then and Now Mrs. Urvashi Koul
18 Separated at Exile Mr. Veerji Wangoo
19 A Ride too far Mr. Vinod Tikoo
20 Surekha’s Story Dr. Alka Chandrayaan
21 Beta’s Story Anonymous

Foreword
One day just like that, the world you call your own is no longer
yours. The house where your ancestors have lived and prospered
has a leaflet attached to it, 'O infidel, leave this place'. Shouts from
the Masjids warn: O Infidels leave Kashmir; We want freedom:
with the Hindu women, without their men; The only rule of law in
Kashmir will be Sharia; Indian Dogs go back. Well-wishers drop
by to ask you to leave, citing growing violence but secretly sizing
your house for their furniture. Bomb blasts, acid attacks and
recovery of ammunition is the standard news. People talk in
whispers as if this is just the beginning- Azadi is just around the
corner. Silence, eerie silence heavily laced with fear.
You find a lift, a taxi a truck to take you and your family out of the
valley. You trust your neighbour with the keys to your abode.
Surely you will return when the Jihad madness calms down? When
you will again be treated as a friend, a neighbour, a teacher and not
as an infidel who obstructs the path to Azadi. Hopefully out of the
valley, your daughter, sister and mother will be safe from acid
attacks, abduction, rapes and forcible conversion and you can
practice your religion without fear.
Jammu is too small, and not designed for mass exodus of 500,000
refugees. Small tents have been put up on open fields with no
sanitation, water or electricity. Extended families people live,
sleep, eat, study in the same cramped space. Life is difficult, ways
of living are different and then there’s shock of being reduced to
nothing, nobody!
Education was the primary concern. Schools are made to run an
afternoon session for refugee students - 40 degree centigrade is
neither ideal for concentration nor for health. Nor are leaking and
flooding tents in the monsoons. Heat strokes, snake bites, scorpion
bites, diarrhoea, malaria, Typhoid and other diseases are common.
So is heart attack, stroke and dementia.
While the elders are dying like flies, young people strive for
excellence. They don't pick up the gun or stretch a hand to beg.
They ask for school, university and college admissions based on

merit and spread across the country for education and career
building. Hard work pays dividends and this young crop of
Kashmiri Hindus make a mini Kashmir wherever in the world they
go.
It's been 30 years since we were forced to leave our land and
hearth, never to return. Resilience: 30 years in Exile is a
compilation of personal traumatic accounts of people who lived
through the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus in 1989-90. It's our humble
attempt to remember these stories and keep them alive - lest we
forget.
Anupama Handoo
Team@KPCS

1. The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus
Mr. S.K. Koul
The exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley of Kashmir is a
tragedy; unprecedented in the annals of human history. In 1990s,
300,000 members of the Kashmiri Hindu community became
refugees in their own country. What led to their extirpation from
their homes and hearths is harrowingly painful. A peace-loving
patriotic minority community was driven out from its abode to
clear the way for total Islamisation of this pious land of Rishis.
Today this land of mystics and saints has turned into hell hole of
terrorism to disintegrate India and to destabilise South Asia.
Jammu & Kashmir was a princely state ruled by Maharaja Hari
Singh when India was partitioned into two sovereign states in
1947. At the time of partition and independence of the two
countries in August 1947, the ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu
and Kashmir had expressed his desire to stay independent because
he expected that the state's Muslims would be unhappy with
accession to India, and the Hindus and Sikhs would become
vulnerable if he joined Pakistan. Only three months later in
October 1947 Pakistan invaded Kashmir using Pathan militia.
Trapped Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession
with India in return of military aid. Pakistan had already seized a
major proportion of the state. To seek arbitration, India went to UN
which laid a set of three conditions:
- Pakistan, the aggressor to vacate the part of Kashmir that it
has illegally occupied.
- India to take over law and order of the state of Jammu and
Kashmir
- To conduct a plebiscite asking whether the citizens wanted
to join India or Pakistan.
Pakistan never vacated the illegally occupied land but created mass
demographic dilutions in the occupied territories. To grab the rest
of Kashmir it has since waged wars in 1965 and in 1999. Having
failed in conventional armed tactics, Pakistan resorted to proxy war

through terrorism. Youth were lured through idea of monetary
reward and Islamic Jihad as a duty; into terror training camps in
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Here they were provided arms,
ammunition and cover fire to infiltrate into Indian side of Kashmir.
The fundamentalist ideas were imposed on the population,
weakening the social fabric of intercommunity relationship and
irreversibly changing the demographics of the valley. Under the
garb of ‘azadi’ or independence; the movement was about Islamic
resurgence that would convert Kashmir valley, the cradle of Hindu
civilization, into an Islamic state.
In 1990, traditionally peaceful valley of Kashmir was plunged into
orgy of bloodshed, arson, rape and torture. About a quarter million
Kashmiri Hindus were forced to abandon their homes leaving
behind their properties worth millions to save their lives, honour
and chastity. The limited choice given to this terror stricken
community was to convert to Islam, flee from the homeland or be
prepared to be killed. By now, communal harmony had been buried
deep under the heavy propaganda of fascist philosophy aided by
the gun. There was a deep rooted conspiracy hatched to create
hatred and suspicion between the communities and every
dissenting voice was brutally silenced.
The Kashmiri Hindu community has suffered insurmountable
hardships, brutalities and tortures at the hands of Muslim rulers
during 14th to 18th century AD. The legend goes that at one time
only eleven Kashmiri Hindu families were left in Kashmir, while
all other Hindus were either killed, converted or chased away.
There is no denying the fact that Kashmiri Hindus have always
suffered due to the arrogant policy of the leaders, rulers and policy
makers while tolerating the hardships of the time. The exodus in
1990 has however surpassed the limits of the past and the pages of
current history of Kashmir are definitely blacker than even those of
Pathan rule, as the present exodus has taken place under a secular
and democratic set up.
We belonged to the state which is called the paradise on Earth and
Switzerland of Asia. We left behind property – buildings, lands,
orchards, moveable and immoveable assets. On being thrown out

of our motherland, we had to move to Jammu and other parts of
India, but we were not accustomed to the hot temperatures and
hostile conditions outside Kashmir. We managed in small one or
two room tenement with no facilities. The government set up open
air tents in waste lands where the community had to tolerate
scorching heat of summer; biting cold of winter and lashing rains
of the monsoon. There was no sanitation, schools and jobs for the
beleaguered community. Snakes and scorpion bites, heat strokes,
physical and mental diseases and stress took their toll.
The Kashmiri Hindu community is the embodiment of patience,
tolerance and perseverance. This community neither resorted to
crime; nor begged anyone for alms. We tolerated hardships and
worked hard for our livelihood. We managed to educate our
children and prepared them for the battle of life. We never instilled
in them the sense of revenge but inspired them to strive for
excellence in all fields. We inculcated positive, constructive and
patriotic values in their hearts which helped them to thrive in a
hostile world. We are living our unfulfilled dreams through our
children, who like the majestic Chinar trees have taken roots all
across the globe. This is how we survived in exile.

Map courtesy Jammu Kashmir Study Centre

2. Kashmiri Pandit Exodus – Up and Close
Mr. Abhinav Dhar
My earliest memory of Kashmir dates to the summer of 1987. Our

family moved to Srinagar from Jammu into our newly built house
in Rawalpora. We were altogether five members; my mum, dad,
elder sister and my younger brother. My siblings and I were getting
used to the new city and its somewhat different culture. My sister
was admitted to Mallinson school and I was fortunate to get
admission mid-term in Burn Hall School.
The cultural differences were strange for me. I recall, my first

games class at my new school. All the kids went to the playground
in a queue. Then we split into two teams, which is very straight
forward. However, here the teams were based on religion. I was
asked by the captains of the team, “Tum Hindu ho Ya Muslim?
(Are you a Hindu or a Muslim)?” Maybe they got confused with
my surname Dhar, which could be either Hindu or Muslim. I
clearly remember that I had no answer for this question. I had just
moved from Jammu and nobody had ever asked me my religion.
So I told them that we are from Jammu. They decided on their own
that I was probably a Muslim and asked me to join the Muslim
team. Funnily enough I was asked by some Punjabi Hindu guys to
leave the Muslim team and join the Hindu team. So I used to play
for both sides and made friends in both teams. I am still friends
with some of my class mates from that time.
Apart from the settling in the schools, my dad joined his work as a
central government employee working for IDPL. My mum was an
entrepreneur and established a gym and a beauty parlour in
Rawalpora. The business was a success, being the first of its kind
in Srinagar. Life was good for another year or so.
The Tahreeq
The trouble started with murders and killings of Pandits in the
valley. During this time several Indian Air Force personnel were
killed in front of our house in Rawalpora Srinagar. Our house was
few meters from the national highway bye-pass road. So I am
personally witness to all this.
10

On another occasion I was walking with my Dad in the vicinity of
our house and I heard a big bang. I thought that some aircraft must
have fallen, but it was a hand grenade thrown at our neighbour’s
house. We saw the terrorists fleeing on a motorbike. As we were
both hardly 50 meters from that place we rushed towards the
damaged house and enquired if everything was safe. This house
belonged to Mr Mohamed Amin who my Dad knew from his days
in the Islamia College Srinagar. Mr Amin was holding a child in
his lap who was crying inconsolably out of fear.
Things were getting tense at the school as well. My friend Zahid

came one evening as usual to our house to play and told me that he
can no longer play with me. His elder brother was radicalised by
his Uncle who had joined JKLF. He was forced to attend the local
Mosque every day and asked not be in touch with Hindu friends.
Both of us were afraid however we continued to meet and play, but
not in front of his brother Khalid. I remember on one occasion I
asked him, what he learnt in the Mosque. So he explained me the
along with radicalisation, the mosque was also teaching them to
make a petrol bomb. Then he gave me a quick demonstration and
told me that tomorrow some of the teenagers would practice the
use of bombs on local Hindu houses. Indeed, the very next day one
of the Hindu houses was lobbed with a petrol bomb.
Events took a very serious turn when on another occasion, me and
my siblings were home alone. My mum had gone to see a
neighbour and Dad was away to Chandigarh. Somebody planted a
bomb outside our house. My elder sister saw that and raised the
alarm. Everyone outside disappeared and we were alone inside the
house. My sister managed to throw me and my brother out of the
back window and climb onto the neighbour’s yard. They
fortunately had a telephone connection. We were so scared that our
mother would come back and the bomb outside the house would
explode. Somehow we were able to contact her and the neighbour
contacted the police. There was chaos and the police sorted out the
commotion. This is the same time when there was a big rally at
Charari-E-Sharif. Arms were distributed at the shrine and all
radicals were loaded with AK47’s. The same night terrorist came
to our house and wanted to enter through the front door. Mum
11

panicked and was scared for our lives. She asked all of us to make
a lot of noise by calling “Papa… Papa ….” Even though Dad was
not at home, as he was away in Chandigarh for work, we kept
shouting. All this while, I was carrying a cricket bat in my hand to
defend my family. Fortunately, the terrorist didn’t manage to break
the solid deodar wood door and our lives were saved on that day.
The very next day my mum’s Gym and Beauty Parlour was
attacked, all the billboards were damaged and removed. We soon
heard that one other beauty parlour was attacked by terrorists in
Jawahar Nagar Srinagar with bombs. Terrorists considered all this
‘haraam’. Under duress my mother had to close her business in
January 1990.
On my dad’s return to the valley, we decided to leave for Jammu

for a few months till the situation got back to normal. We left
Kashmir valley in March 1990. It was done in haste and we just
packed a few bits and got on board a truck. There were a few other
Hindu families escaping with us. All the men were sitting in the
back of the truck and the women were at the front. I and my
brother got some space on top of the engine next to the driver. The
truck driver started from Rawalpora at night, we were stopped at
many check points on the by-pass road. One of the check points the
driver was beaten up by the army, they let us go after they saw
women with “tilaks” accompanying.
Life in Jammu:
The small town of Jammu was bursting at the seams with Kashmiri
refugees. There was chaos everywhere. Lack of accommodation
and complete disarray. We found a temporary accommodation as
we knew people in Jammu. Within a few days we were looking for
a school. We joined St. Peters where everyone else from Burn Hall
had joined. Most of our teachers and students had somehow
gathered there as the Principal from Burn Hall, Father Dominic
started a second shift school. Our school day started when the main
stream school finished. We would start at 2pm, at the peak of
summer heat. The classrooms were tin sheds. Students would faint
because of heat strokes, there were no fans or even drinking water.
12

The conditions were inhuman. I remember we used to remove our
sweat drenched uniform shirt and wring them.
As if this wasn’t enough, the local Jammu people used to mock and
mistreat us. They would call us names like “Kashmiri Lola“,
“Gand Paya”. I have been pushed out of a local bus for being a
Kashmiri. We would have to wait for many buses to pass by and
then some would allow us lot to get on-board the bus. Sometimes I
think, what is racism? What I had experienced in my own country
was pure rage and the height of racism. The local boys used to etch
derogatory slogans on the desks, like “Kashmiri Kuttey “, Kashmiri
Dogs “, “Go Back”. They used to leave the taps of water tanks
open, so that there was no water to drink for the second shift
Kashmiri students. I remember having a thermos water bottle and
that was a prized possession and a luxury. There used to be fights
between the first shift kids and us for no reason.
I recall my parents telling us that only education could liberate us
out of this mess and we should only focus on our schooling. We
would sleep on the floor, study, play and carry on with everything
in the same one room accommodation.
Kidnappings in the family:

Some of our relatives dared to return back to Kashmir. It was
summer of 1991, when my Uncle Prof. Omkarnath Wakhloo and
Aunty Mrs. Khemlata went back. Both were kidnapped from their
residence in Dalgate by Hizbul Mujahideen. Their house was
wrecked, all doors were smashed, bullet marks everywhere. The
ordeal for the rest of the family was very tough. On one occasion
we received cut fingers and were told that they belonged to my
Uncle. They remained in captivity and were rescued by the Indian
Army later that year. In March 1992 my other Uncle Dr. S N Dhar
was kidnapped. He remained in captivity for 83 days. I can
remember each day was a torment for all family members. At
school my class mated would tell me that next kidnapping would
be of my father. Dad had started to visit Kashmir for work. It was a
very tough time. I went back in 1995 with my mum as a visitor.
13

Having living through this turmoil, in my childhood and youth has
had a profound impact on me as a person.
I continued studies in Jammu till I graduated from Jammu
University. I worked and lived in New Delhi for a few years and
then got a scholarship to study in the UK. I moved to UK to study
in the year 2005 and choose to work stay in the UK for a
multinational company.
14

TOI news September 2019
15

3. Lost Childhood
Dr. Viny Kantroo
“Take only few books which can fit in this school bag, we don’t
have that much time” called out my father in a hush but firm tone.
It was a cold winter night of March 12, 1990 when I left my home.
The home which I never saw again; the home which I never found
in any other house.
My father had just returned back from Baramulla, a town in south
Kashmir where he was posted. At that time, Baramulla was
witnessing the most horrific peak of terrorist activities –
kidnappings, looting and killings. Ma, my mum used to be terrified
every day, glued to the radio for any news of “Deel”- relaxation in
curfew - when Dad could take a taxi back to Anantnag, our home
which was 80 miles away and where rest of us lived. Every night
we would hear firing and it would scare us. We used to hide below
the beds wrapped up in quilts, crying, fearing that the bullets would
penetrate our bodies. Unknown to us, this trauma and fear had
already penetrated my brother’s and my tender mind. Rock, our
dog used to sense these firings in advance and would bark
ceaselessly for an hour before the firing started. My mother was
really worried about him being the target of the bullet one day.
In our locality, most of the Hindu families had already abandoned

their houses and left, to save their lives. Only five families
remained of which we were one. My parents did not want to lose
their only investment and property built over a period of 5 years for
the simple reason that they had no ancestral money and everything
including our school fees had to be paid out of their salary.
“It is more dangerous and murky than we are thinking” said Ma to
Dad. “Do you really care for your children? We will be killed if we
don’t leave immediately”, she said, reading the yellow pamphlet
which somebody had pasted outside of our house gates in the dead
of night. It read, “Raliv, Galiv ya Chaliv” (convert to Islam, die or
leave) in simple terms. As a little child trying to comprehend the
enormity of this decision; all I could think was that a monster was
trying to panic everyone. I was only worried about my school
16

books which I had decorated and laminated in excitement of being
promoted to Year Five. “Take only a few books” my father
reminded.
Somehow I selected few books, filled my bag to maximum
capacity, opened my piggy bank, took out some money and started
fleeing along with my neighbours. We feared someone was
following us and if we make any noise, we would be shot dead.
This is the time when Kashmiri Hindus were openly being
slaughtered, raped and intimidated to make them leave Kashmir
and we were sitting ducks for the terrorists. Rock was barking
relentlessly again, and this is when we knew something or someone
strange was around us, watching our movements.
Somehow, we reached the house of a business family about a mile
away, from where load carrier trucks were supposed to take us to
Jammu. Jammu was a city outside the Kashmir valley. It was a part
of Jammu And Kashmir State and was fast becoming home to
millions of migrating Kashmiri Hindus. We were about 5 families,
25 people including children and our Labrador dog. We had not
eaten dinner and were offered some snacks. The moment I picked a
snack there was a loud burst of gunfire noise and I dropped it from
my hand, hiding myself in the lap of my mother. It was the cross
firing again and we were all terrified by the idea that we are stuck
in a stranger’s house and will be slaughtered there en-masse. It
was the most agonising wait of our lives. I was just scared of the
monster, the monster inside the terrorists. After an anxious wait for
four hours, when bullets started to slow down, we got into the
trucks all at once and left. We were transported like cattle
alongside big sacks of rice. I did not like the sight of it. It was the
longest and the most tiring journey of our lives.
We reached Jammu, 128 miles away and had to lodge with 10
other families in a dormitory in a school. I was hungry as I had not
eaten for more than 18 hours. Dad bought some tea and biscuits
and we had to be content with it for next 8 hours. Somehow all the
families contributed some money and all the ladies cooked a basic
meal. Hours turned into days, days into weeks and weeks into
months. There was no school to go to, no books to read, and no
17

games to play. Just endless wait with weak, wasting malnourished
kids and families. No one knew what we were waiting for. I was
worried about not being able to go to school or study again.
Finally, we heard the news that my parents would be paid their
salaries after 3 months. With this slight succour, my family
somehow managed to move to a rented one room place on the third
floor of a house in Jammu. It was pouring very heavily that year;
both from the sky and from my mother’s eyes. She was
inconsolable. We had lost everything including our homes, jobs,
our belongings, our memories, our birthplace and our patience.
The next few years were equally testing. We were teased in school
as being cowards, and called names like fugitives, refugees,
migrants, aliens and outcasts. I had to study in a store room with no
vent or fan every day in scorching heat as there was only one room
we could afford, and that was used for cooking, sleeping, eating,
and everything else. This was a huge contrast with our lives in
Kashmir. We had just extended our house there to give us children
individual rooms to study and play. In my room I had kept my
dolls and would talk to myself for long hours in front of mirror and
rejoice in nothingness. Our house in Kashmir was special not only
because it was our home but also because I celebrated my first
birthday there and the walls were witness to my families’ happy
and sad moments. Now, we had nothing. My brother was affected
the most as he had his pre-university examinations and entrance
tests.
I happened to visit Kashmir in 2005 about fifteen years after the

exile as I had to join my Postgraduation course in Medicine but my
dad felt I would not be secure enough in the troubled environment.
He still remembered the innocent and ever smiling face of our
neighbour Geeta Bhat (Name Changed) who was a Nurse working
in the same hospital where I was supposed to join. She was
kidnapped, mercilessly raped for many days, killed by the terrorists
and the body thrown in open area in downtown Srinagar. The irony
is rest of neighbours around their house were warned not to join the
cremation or else lose their lives. My father felt I too would be
killed as my job involves dealing with the wounded. I had to
18

surrender my postgraduate Course in Srinagar. We both could not
go and visit our home town for it was too traumatic to breathe the
obnoxious air that smelt of murders. He was told by his Muslim
neighbours when they visited us in Jammu that our photo albums
and ma’s expensive pure silk sarees lay torn and thrown open near
dustbins not far off from my home in Kashmir.
Now our family has moved on and re-built our lives. We focussed
on the positives, on education, on building our careers. I am a
doctor in the UK and my brother has a Master’s in Business
Administration and works with a leading Bank in Saudi Arabia.
However, the trauma of our childhood is itched very deep in my
memory. I often get dreams about running away and being chased
with guns. ’Of all the things I miss, I miss myself the most’ in
those photo albums where my childhood was caught in
innumerable memories.
I do not have any photographs from my childhood.
19

4. A visit back Home: No Fairy Tales
Dr. Shivani Dudha
It was in back in the year 2006, being a 9th grade student, when I
had the pleasure of travelling by air for the very first time in my
life. But more importantly, it was the first time I went to my
motherland Kashmir.
The predicament in having to explain my family roots has always
existed since I was a young child, and it was not uncommon that I
was met with pitiful glares or awkward silence due to lack of
knowledge of the person in front of me. They simply could not
fathom reasons for an internally displaced migrant. “My family
very painfully had to abandon their home and migrate to other parts
of India because of the mass genocide of Kashmiri Hindus,
systemically carried out by Islamic Jihadists, who included external
terrorists as well as local Muslims who were radicalised”.
A lot of people assumed that being a Kashmiri I must be used to
freezing Delhi winters, and I had to explain I had the genes but not
the physical resilience. Few others, once called me a “fake
Kashmiri”. I didn’t really understand why I was called that, and
remember asking my family about it. Slowly, painfully and spread
over a large number of years, the little stories of life before and
after the exodus trickled out.
My late father never read out any fairy tales to me and my brother,
but instead real-life stories from his childhood. They were the most
beautifully strung pearls of memories, and looking back I wish I
had recorded him, so could pass them on to the coming generation.
Imagine an independent detached house at the crossroads in a

quaint town. This is where dad and his 8 siblings, all older and
some with their own branched families, had the pleasure of
growing up. The money was tight, the house was packed, the food
supplies were constantly running out, but the hearts were never
short of love. There was plenty for all youngsters, even if it meant
that sometimes the same bread was divided into few more pieces.
The stomachs even if not completely full, were always content.
20

Chilly winters saw a couple of kangris (personal fire pot) being
shared among a few, the burning coal in a basket keeping bodies
warm inside a “pheran”. Education was given utmost importance.
My grandfather was an academician, and encouraged all his
children (and their own too) to pursue mainstream professional
careers. Dad told me that the school uniform was passed down
several times until the holes started to gape, and so were the
classroom notes. Some of the uncles, including my dad, had the
handwriting that would make it to the list of Microsoft word fonts,
and is still shown today to the toddlers as something to emulate.
Imagine, a large family with their own branching all grown up and
living lovingly under a roof. The streets for playing “gully cricket”
were narrow and the playgrounds for playing football were not as
big as in New Delhi as I know it to be, but the qualities of
sportsmanship and leadership were embedded in all who yearned to
learn. My father told us how he played with his friends all through
the harsh winters on the snowy mountains and by the riverside
during summer, with the lads not ever thinking to divide their team
based on religion.
It was until I became a young adult, when I learnt that the fairy
tales from my childhood were sometimes tweaked or left
incomplete because they had a very dark end. It was in the late
1980s I was told, that the neighbours stopped visiting like before.
That hostility grew in the shadows and whispers could be heard
when passing through unfamiliar terrains. Over the next few years,
prominent figures holding a stature of influence in their respectable
professions were being reported missing or kidnapped, and every
case led to the finding of them being reported deceased. At first the
deaths were inconspicuous, but in a matter of months as selected
religious intolerance towards Hindus grew and the propaganda of
Jihadists of “ethnic cleansing” became evident, their horrid actions
bore no attempts of being done secretly. I was told that there were
“hit lists” outside homes (including our family home on one
occasion) that warned the Kashmiri Pandits to evacuate, lest face
being murdered. It was an open threat, also being supported by
loud shrieks from the mosques that indicated that although men
must leave, their women may stay behind. I was stunned in
21

disbelief, surely this was not true? But the more displaced
Kashmiri brethren I spoke to who had survived to tell the same
tale, the more I started to have mixed feelings towards my
motherland and the people who live there today. What followed
was Kashmir witnessing the shameful act of lakhs of Pandits being
driven out of their homes, in the most unfortunate way. Whilst
several left bereaved, many left out of fear for their lives. Some left
with their little ones and one small bag hidden at the back of trucks
or lorries, being transported in the darkness by their trusted
acquaintances who helped them escape. Very few who did not have
a safe haven to turn to, chose to remain behind.
Whose failure was it that Jihadists infiltrated a beautiful state
where people from different religions living harmoniously? Whose
failure was it when some of the locals radicalised and either
directly themselves became terrorists or aided others to carry out
premeditated, systemic and structured mass murders in the most
heart-wrenching and brutal way known to mankind? Do we despise
the whole community which allowed this to happen under their
nose and kept quiet, or do we forgive them and work together for
our return? If at all we do return some day, will be even be safe?
My mind was swarming with a lot of questions, and the more I
read about the current affairs and political issue in Kashmir, the
more I found the history of Kashmiri Pandits being diluted and
forgotten, because it bore no significant weightage for the vote-
bank. My father deliberately did not include in the bedtime stories,
how our neighbours and friends one by one, witnessed gruesome
and gory evidence of torture whilst cremating their loved ones, that
included missing internal body parts, severed heads, penetrating
wounds with blades weapons, mutilation of genitals, burn marks on
multiple parts of the body and other tangible marks that have
etched the lived on their loved ones with unspeakable misery.
My father’s elder brother once was travelling on a bus to return

home from his work, with his colleagues. He was a respectable and
loved engineer, who had touched the lives of many and helped
innumerable people across his life. Terrorists interrupted their
journey and on entering the bus asked everyone to separate in two
22

lines, to recite the Quran to prove their authenticity of being a
Muslim. Those who did not, were gunned down immediately. My
uncle, bless him, knew several versus from the Quran as he had
grown up with multi-cultural friends and was used to being a part
of their festivities. Despite reciting this, his identity was given
away and his shirt was torn revealing the sacred holy thread worn
by Kashmiri Pandits. I do not have the heart to pen down what
followed next.
Those of my family who were not posted out of Kashmir for a job
or pursuing education degrees, left Kashmir shortly after. The
house where my dad grew up in the place which the world now
fondly called “world’s second Switzerland” was empty, abandoned
and filled with echoes of despair. During my holiday in Kashmir,
we passed it briefly, and I stopped to stare at the broken windows,
the dilapidated state of walls and some of the clothes hanging out
to dry of the army personnel, who were using the place as a bunker,
given it was at a strategic location.
Why did we never go back to Kashmir, I asked dad. I always saw
the emptiness behind his eyes that he tried to hide whenever he told
me with an encouraging smile - one day my child, we will.
It breaks my heart to know that there several others from my
generation who were born outside Kashmir and have grown up
consoling and sharing the pain of grieving relatives, just by the
sheer mention of Kashmir. Despite seeing my family endure so
many hardships, I was taught never to harbour feelings of hatred
towards anyone, as it would not solve anything. As someone
training to become a psychiatrist, it also makes me wonder the
longer term impact of mass genocide on a community’s mental
health, and how little emphasis has been laid on this until date.
I have nothing but prayers and love for the families of those of us
who are permanently affected. Today, even though our heart
bleeds, I am proud to say that no matter where in the world we
settle, we shall hold our hands together uplifting each other and
treasure the values our forefathers passed down to us.
23

5. A painful memory of a displaced Kashmiri Pandit
family
Dr. Chandan Kotwal
As I go down memory lane and reflect on the grave tragedy that

befell our Kashmiri Pandit community 1989 onwards, a myriad of
images come to my mind of the painful displacement of an
educated, gentle and hardworking community. However one very
painful memory stands starkly etched in my psyche that on one
hand shows the wounds that displacement inflicted on our people
and on the other hand highlights the stoicism and the resilient
survival instinct of Kashmiri Pandits. This in the face of grave and
life threatening ordeals caused by the mass exodus (which happens
to be the seventh to date in the last 800 years) out of the valley
where our ancestors had lived for thousands of years. Kashmiri
Pandits were the targeted victims of a terrorism campaign carried
out by the radicalised Kashmiri Muslim youth (aided and abetted
by the Pakistani state) who picked up the gun to terrorize the
peace-loving inhabitants of Kashmir valley.
I had just completed my MBBS from Government Medical

College, Jammu in 1988 and had started my house surgeon job in
the surgical department of SMGS hospital in Jammu.
I had already observed for a few months a steady flow of Kashmiri

Pandit families arriving in Jammu, being forced to leave due to
rising political and religious intolerance and harassment that they
were having to face on a daily basis. Many such displaced families
had never ventured outside the comforting lap of nature in Kashmir
and as a result of the forced exodus were only just starting to
realize the inhospitable and unhygienic conditions into which they
were forced to live in Jammu. As a consequence of living in over
crowded camps with makeshift tents and temporary brick sheds as
shelters with poor sanitation facilities many especially the very
young and the old suffered numerous illnesses, heat strokes and
snake bites. They ended up in the accident and emergency and out
patients department in SMGS hospital on a daily basis. It was in
one such surgical out patients clinics that I noticed a very anxious
24

young lady enter along with an emaciated gentleman who looked
pale and drawn and was seen by the surgical registrar.
Later during the ward round next morning, I came to know that this
gentleman was a Kashmiri Pandit farmer who had fled from a
village in Kashmir along with his wife and four children, youngest
being 5 years old and were living in one of the shanty camps set up
for displaced Pandits in Jammu. As fate would have in store, it was
very bad news for Pandit Sahib as he was diagnosed with an
intestinal malignancy. The news of this diagnosis hit him and his
young family devastatingly hard. He had to undergo multiple
operations and chemotherapy and as the weeks and months went
by I could see him wither away from the adverse effects of his
treatment.
It broke my heart to see his very young children visit him and all
had the look of despair and uncertainty on their faces. His wife
would express her grief and daily struggle to get support and
survive the hardships that had befallen her and her children. There
was no hope in sight as her husband was clearly very poorly and
except for the meagre monthly paltry relief given by the authorities
there was no other financial support or savings to fall back on for
her husband’s treatment.
I found it very difficult to bear the pain that they were going
through and in an effort to lessen the impact of the pain decided to
offer some monetary help to Pandit sahib. Despite their hardships
and despite my assurance that I was no stranger but one of their
own community and considered them as my family they did not
accept it. Pandit sahib politely but persistently refused this
assistance and so did his wife. They said they would manage
somehow. All I could offer was that he should not hesitate to
approach me for any assistance in the future if need be.
Time flew by fast and I realized that soon my six months of

surgical house job tenure was coming to its end. I went around the
ward to bid farewell to Pandit sahib but to my utter shock I was
given the sad news by his team doctor that he had succumbed to his
illness, 2 weeks back.
25

I tried to make some enquiries from the local Pandit Sabha but I
was not able to locate the family. I subsequently had to leave
Jammu for Delhi on the 19th January 1990 after completing my
house job to pursue further training. During my overnight train
journey on this fateful day, I came to know of the night of terror for
our community. I sat thinking to myself how destiny had brought
me face to face with a Kashmiri Pandit family who were caught in
the whirlpool of displacement and homelessness for no fault of
theirs and now leading a life of destitution and misery in Jammu
without the protective hand of their father on the four children and
a wife who was going from pillar to post to make ends meet in very
difficult makeshift and squalid conditions of a migrant camp.
Soon after there followed an en-masse Kashmiri Pandit exodus

from the valley to camps in Udhampur, Nagrota, Jammu and the
community kept on enduring through pain and suffering but never
gave up hope.
I have often reflected on the ordeals of this family and to this day
whilst on one hand I have great respect for the sense of pride and
stoicism shown by Pandit sahib even in the face of grave physical,
emotional and financial threat faced by his family but another part
of me still harbours a deep seated regret that I could not be more
forceful in putting across arguments to make Pandit sahib accept
the monetary assistance.
Once in Delhi, I set about pursuing my medical career and left

India to go abroad in 1992. For decades Kashmir continued to be
rocked by the carnage of terrorism and the homeless Kashmiri
Pandit community continued to languish in exile in Jammu camps
with not the faintest of hope to return to their lost homeland
Kashmir.
My next opportunity to return to Jammu was in 2008 to visit the

Kashmiri Pandit migrant camps where I made enquiries about the
whereabouts of Pandit sahibs family but again to my
disappointment nobody was able to give me any information and
somehow left me with a hunch that something terrible had
happened to all of them that people did not want to share with me.
26

I feel sorry even to this day that I could not help this beleaguered
family in any way but I do know for sure that Pandit sahibs’ sense
of duty and devotion towards his family and his pride and dignity
have inspired a deep sense of respect in my heart for my brethren.
As a tribute to the memory of the sacrifice made by Pandit sahib in

the face of grave adversity, I vowed that henceforth I will always
be there for my community and serve it in whatever humble way I
can and in doing so pay homage to the sacrifices made by hundreds
of thousands of Pandit families who suffered immense physical and
emotional trauma as a result of the forced exodus.
Let’s all pledge not to rest till justice is delivered to the families of
all Pandit brethren who have been the victims of ethnic cleansing
and genocide.
My salutations to the fallen heroes of my community whose

sacrifices will never be forgotten.
27

6. Scars of Childhood
Mrs. Meenakshi Kaul
I was only 4 years old when our family left Srinagar. It was the last
time when our extended family of grandparents, two uncles, aunts,
three cousins, my parents, myself and one-year old little brother
lived together under one roof. I don’t remember what time it was
when we left clandestinely in a bus at night.
As a kid what memories I have is our room at the fourth floor of
our family house and the window where my parents used to feed
me watching the crows, the tap in the front garden which was very
near to the main gate as I loved to play with water most of the
times. The balcony where from I used to see my dad coming from
office in the evening and rush to mom to take me downstairs as it
was time for me to go for a scooter ride. My school where I used to
see my maternal cousins daily. Go to their houses over weekends
with my parents. Such beautiful moments but it has never been the
same after that night when we had to leave. It is a moment of pride
when the world calls my birthplace as “Heaven on Earth” for its
beauty; but I don’t remember any scenic places where my parents
had taken me to, but only in pictures to see after. Last but not the
least memory which has stayed with me as a kid and now is when I
used to hide below the bed after hearing the people outside our
house shouting “Allah Allah” which did not sound very warm. It
had no warmth because that chant was part of strategy to push
Kashmiri Pandits to leave our very own place.
Kashmiri Pandits who were already a minority community in the
Kashmir Valley were targeted with the most violent of deaths and
rapes. They had some hit list of all the Kashmiri Pandits who were
no longer desired to be in their own state in their eyes. In order to
conceal their identity, the Kashmiri Pandit ladies going out of their
houses would remove their ‘bindi’ which represents a married
Hindu lady. The diktat was to die, leave or convert. That’s how
they had started to operate and many families lost their loved ones.
Not all Muslims in Kashmir wanted the fellow Pandits to be killed,
few helped us to save our lives at least at that time. They had
28

ganged up to attack my Dad on his way back home from work but
his office driver being a Kashmiri Muslim got to know about it and
saved him by driving him through a different road. My uncle who
was in teaching profession had Kashmiri Muslim students as well
as home tuitions. It was them who told him that the people have
started planning to attack his family. They had put a notice on our
door threatening us to leave or we would be the next to be killed.
To leave everything back and flee in order to save our lives was the
only decision we could make. It was not our choice as many
outside of Jammu and Kashmir still think.
I remember we came to Jammu to a house which was not like our
very own. How would it have felt to our parents to move from their
own house built with love to a rented house? It was not the same
life as was before. Things were not easy for us and to the families
we knew. For parents it was really starting from nothing, at that
stage in your life when you have already done enough. People
would know we were migrants. How does it feel to be called
refugees in your own country? Some were helpful but many used
this time to exploit us as we were already suffering. It was not
really pity that we were looking for, but really our rights that we
were not able to fight for as no one took our stand.
After these many years, whenever we tell our story, it brings pain
remembering what the family and the community has suffered
through. We have never gone back to Kashmir ever since. But I
would like to see a day when really Kashmir is set free. India got
freedom long back but we the democratic citizens still have not
been able to gain the freedom to go back to our birthplace, to
where we belong. I am a proud Kashmiri Pandit, part of the
community who chose to rise in all aspects despite all the atrocities
we faced.
29

7. Mazhab nahi sikhata, Aapas main bair rakhna
Dr. Natasha Dhar
(Faith doesn’t teach one to hate)

Kashmiri Pandits fled the valley in 1990 following religious
persecution, a year that will forever signify the pain and
desperation that led to their mass exodus. The Dhar’s from
Barzulla, famously known as the Vakils, from the lineage of the
famous Pandit Ganalal Vakil and the great Pandit Sonjoo Vakil,
fled Srinagar on the night of the 16th April 1990. This is their
story.
Pandit Sonjoo Dhar Vakil was a prominent lawyer of the 19th
century known for his legal expertise and professionalism. His
skills and knowledge of tackling difficult cases were cleverly
acquired by his sons Pandit Ganalal Dhar Vakil (Srinagar) and
Pandit Shambho Nath Dhar Vakil (Anantnag) who were highly
influential lawyers, adept in the field of law. Pandit Ganalal was
also known for his benevolent spirit and never shied from caring
for the poor and underprivileged. His legal skills and knowledge
were quite advanced and he was one of the few lawyers to practice
law in Urdu. His views on the act of dowry were modern for the
era he lived in and he set an example by refusing to accept any
dowry from his wife or from any of his daughters-in law.
His younger brother Pandit Vedlal Dhar was a great social
reformer as well and very early on voluntarily chose to marry a
widow, facing tough criticism from the staunch Kashmiri
community. He was a lover of music and played instruments like
the Sarangi and Santoor with ease. His contribution in the field of
music is well known, the lineage being carried on by his daughters
even today.
In 1947 following the invasion of Kashmir by the tribesmen from

the frontier, Pandit Ganalal Vakil became uncertain about the
safety of Hindus in Kashmir. His home in Barzulla seemed to be
susceptible to most of the elements, being the only large estate in
the area. He hence moved his household to downtown Srinagar
30

where he remained with his in laws for the next few months until
matters settled down. The invasion and unrest made him very
insecure about the welfare and safety of his family. He often
voiced his decision to move his residence permanently to Almora
in Himachal Pradesh, known for its cool climate and similar
geographic attributes as Kashmir. His close confidante and well-
wisher Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (freedom fighter, lawyer, politician)
was much against his decision and convinced him that this unrest
was temporary.
The Vakils remained in Kashmir for the next 43 years bringing up
their family and creating memories that lasted a lifetime. Barzulla
soon became a popular residential area and was home to some of
the well-known local hospitals such as the TB and Bone hospital.
The two communities lived together in harmony and it was
common for the children to interact within the communities as one
family. Barzulla also remained famous for the home of the
renowned Ganalal Vakil and his family. He sadly passed away in
1968 and was survived by his wife, 6 sons and a daughter.
The Exodus 1989-90
Towards the middle of the1989, following the murder of the

famous lawyer Tiklal Taploo, the waves of “Azadi “ (Freedom) felt
stronger than ever before and suddenly the innocent faces of the
once friendly neighbours now became the epitome of hostility.
Such was the scene in Kashmir those days. Pandit Ganalal’s fear
seemed to have now become a reality. By 1990 January local
mosques had started openly threatening the Pandit community
advising them to leave Kashmir. Life in Kashmir was not the same;
life in Barzulla too was filled with fear and anxiety.
Panditji’s sons had paved their own path since their father passed
away. Three of his children relocated outside Kashmir, while, for
those that remained, Kashmir became a way of life; their heart and
soul resided in the valley. For our father, life outside Kashmir was
inconceivable. He had worked in the Forest division of the
Government of Kashmir until 1962 after which he took charge of
31

the family orchards bringing business from almonds, walnuts and
apples.
His eldest daughter working for Kendriya Vidyalaya (Air Force
Station) in 1990 recalls grenade attacks on some of the school
buses causing curfew and indefinite school closure. She also recalls
that her fiancé and his family were given notices openly asking
them to leave or face death. This forced them to leave the valley on
the 28/2/1990. She vividly recalls her mother’s fear for herself and
her sister and her plans to hide in cupboards to avoid militants
getting hold of them if they were ever in peril.
By March 1990, some of the neighbours at Barzulla started openly
suggesting the family vacate or be killed by militants. Clearly,
being from the influential Vakil family made them an easy target
for terror. Our father recalls returning one afternoon from Lal
Chowk in early 1990 when militants asked him to prove his
identity by reciting Quranic verses. Standing his ground, he
scolded them in a dialect mostly spoken by local Muslims and
chided them for their audacity. Seeing his confidence he was
thankfully let off. He fled the spot but made a strong resolve to
leave his beloved Kashmir as soon as possible for the safety of his
family. Our father also recalls several instances when the locals
loudly addressed him as Panditji during heightened militancy to
attract attention and put his life in danger. This distressed him more
than ever as his once close Muslim friends and neighbours now
seemed estranged.
While studying for her Masters in Economics in 1989, his younger
daughter recalls being chosen the class representative from
amongst a Muslim majority. She was often bullied and called
“Battini Dodhiye mass!!’, meaning “Hey Hindu, Brahmin girl, may
your hair burn.” She was petrified by the animosity in their voices.
To strengthen their threats, some male students threw live cigarette
butts on her, which burnt her clothes and skin. She was gravely
affected by the turn of events and constantly remained depressed.
By late February 1990, his only son studying Engineering at
Bangalore visited the family to celebrate the auspicious festival of
32

Shivratri. Close neighbours noted his presence and advised that he
be sent away with immediate effect or face the consequences.
Hence on the night of March 4th 1990, his son and his uncle fled
for Jammu. They were huddled in a small taxi that unfortunately
collided with a truck near Anantnag. Shaken by the incident they
remain thankful to this day for being alive under the circumstances.
The fear of being killed at any time by the locals however still
loomed large despite their narrow escape.
Finally, on the night of the 16 April 1990, our father bid adieu to
his beloved Kashmir and fled the valley in a truck along with his
wife and eldest daughter. He assumed that he too would return
within the next 6 months just as his father did in 1947. When he
crossed the Banihal tunnel that night, little did he know that it was
the last time he would see his home again.
The show must go on

And it did. Our family was, is and will always be highly grateful to
the almighty for the safe relocation and movement of all the
members of Pandit Ganalal Vakils family.
From a home with 10-12 rooms, the Dhar’s from Barzulla moved
into a rented accommodation in Trikuta nagar, Jammu along with
the Kauls (our mother’s sister and her family). Both families were
historically accustomed to living luxuriously in large homes with
abundant water. 14 members from 2 families were now housed in a
3 bedroom flat. The kitchen was divided between the Dhar’s and
the Kauls. Differences soon arose amongst the women and a daily
battle for rights to water and electricity created a great divide
amongst the family members. The families that previously couldn’t
live without each other now found reasons to avoid and criticise the
other.
Life was getting very difficult each day but the families often
recalled their happy memories in Kashmir and tried to suppress the
stress and anxiety the exodus had created. This continued for the
next two years after which the Kauls relocated to New Delhi. The
Dhar’s remained in Trikuta Nagar till 1996 after which they
relocated to Delhi as well. Life in the Metro (New Delhi) was a far
33

cry from Trikuta Nagar or for that matter Barzulla. Most people in
Delhi lived in tiny flats coupled with the horrors of improper
sanitation and water shortage including power cuts. The winters
were marginally easy to handle while the summers brought in
sleepless nights infested with mosquitoes and frequent power cuts.
It was then that, unable to withstand the entire process, our mother
took a turn for the worse and went into deep depression refusing to
eat, bathe and sleep. She was started on medication and remains on
them to this very day. Our father remained perpetually glued to the
television waiting to hear the government’s plan for the estranged
Pandits, now refugees in their own country. He often dreamt of
normalcy in the valley and reassured himself and all of us on a day
to day basis that the relocation was only a matter of a few more
days. However days became months and months soon became
years. There seemed to be no government plan in sight and despite
several changes in the government, the Kashmiri Pandits seem to
have been long forgotten.
In hopes that someday he would return to his beloved Kashmir, our

father never bought a house and lived in rented accommodation. As
a result he developed chronic insomnia, depression and Type 2
Diabetes and remains on medication to this day. Despite all the
stress and lack of any social security or funds for survival, he
managed to get his children married and chose to live an
independent life along with his wife.
Visit to Kashmir 2007
We often wondered if life in Srinagar had changed since 1990.
Perhaps the Barzulla we knew may also have changed? Does
anyone remember the Vakils from Barzulla anymore?? Does
anyone remember the Kashmiri Pandits anymore??
In 2007, almost 17 years after they left the valley, our family
decided to visit Kashmir. The planning process and booking for the
hotels etc. felt surreal after having spent a whole lifetime there.
The drive from Jammu to Srinagar was nostalgic and emotions ran
high on crossing the Banihal tunnel 17 years on. We were stopped
in the main city by the CRPF forces but after checking our ID,
34

were let off with minimal questioning. The city was dotted with
CRPF posts while the absence of the Pandit community was visibly
noticeable.
The excitement of visiting Barzulla that morning, after what
seemed an eternity, was palpable and emotions ran high as we
approached the area. New homes and new flyovers had changed
the topography of the Barzulla we knew. Although we had heard
that the ancestral home was burned down, we expected to still see
some of the remains and the house built by our father. Instead we
saw few balloon sellers living on a barren land while right in the
middle of the property stood a burnt down exterior of our father’s
house, now home to the nomadic balloon sellers from Bihar.
Stunned and still in denial, we got down from our car and walked
towards the entrance of the land that once belonged to the great
Ganalal Vakil, that housed the property that almost every Kashmiri
identified. The once opulent gate and garden that welcomed
dignitaries in the past were now a distant memory. Walking into
the broken entrance of the house we noted waste and debris strewn
around what was the remnant of the main door surrounded by
broken windows. The sight was so disturbing that we started to get
concerned about our father and mother as they tried very hard to
hide their emotions.
By now the curious neighbours started making their way towards
us while the balloon sellers suspected our connection with the
house and land. Walking through the house, our mother relived the
memories associated with each room while our father looked
around, the pain visibly etched on his face. The kitchen has always
been the pride of any homemaker and our mother was known to
love her space. She started to describe the emotions that went
through the family the day they finished constructing the place. Her
childlike excitement when she showed us the various nooks and
crannies of her favourite room in the house was heart breaking.
Now all that was left of the place were charred and broken remains.
Her speech soon became so strained with her emotions that it made
all of us just stop to hug her and cry. 17 years of pent up frustration
and emotions released itself on that day and we all cried like never
35

before, shamelessly in front of the curiously peering eyes of the
balloon sellers. They came to us and offered us a place to sit after
having gathered that this was once our home. They expressed their
anguish at the events that lead to the exodus. The whole scene was
far too upsetting. Yet we are alive and still together as a family and
that was all that mattered. The show did go on indeed!!!
The rest of the journey went in a blur. Our father still affected from
the traumatic visual images of his beloved Barzulla had suddenly
stopped talking. He remained almost motionless throughout our
journey back and burst into tears only as we left the Banihal tunnel
knowing somewhere in his heart that he would never return. He
had lost his beautiful ‘Kashir’ that day. The valley was lost
forever!
We had to return to Jammu as time was running out but the journey
back was very difficult as painful memories of what we had
witnessed kept jolting us back to reality. The landscape we noted
on our return were jotted with burnt homes once belonging to
Pandit families, leaving behind a cruel reminder of the insane
nature of this senseless dream to achieve AZAADI!
36

8. Unhealed wounds
Mrs. Anu Dudha
Ever since I have been asked to write about my experience, I’ve
had many trips down the memory lane and realized how difficult it
is to write about things, feelings, events as some memories have
been buried so deep down that even trying to retrieve them is filled
with much pain.
We grew up in a joint family in Srinagar. My father was 2nd oldest
of 8 siblings, most of whom were living together in that home.
There wasn’t much money but enough love among all.
The exodus
It was year 1989-90 and I was away at Raipur pursuing my PG and
staying with one of my uncle and aunt who took good care of me.
Every now and then the letters and phone calls intimating welfare
back home was reassuring. Still I used to fear about my parents’
lives as almost each day we would hear about the tragedies and
atrocities that Kashmiri Hindus were enduring. My father would
often laugh my fears off to reassure me over the phone and ask
why anyone would kill him, as he was not a very prominent
member of the society.
Most of my family was away in Delhi attending the Greh Pravesh
(house warming) of my Aunt. Only one of my uncle and cousin
were in Srinagar. They got a threatening letter that if they didn’t
leave overnight, our family would be wiped out. They both had to
break open every uncle’s room and collect some stuff from each
room (as everyone was away) and bring our pet dog Lucie. How
difficult it must have been to choose/decide on everyone’s behalf
for them, I leave you all to imagine!
Most of my family shifted at my uncle’s home in Janipur who was

gracious enough to accommodate them all. It took many months
for people to relocate to other states, cities and eventually settle
down after loads of financial and emotional hardships. As my sister
was already married and settled in Delhi and me studying away,
37

my uncle out of love and affection didn’t let my parents move
away. However after a few more months my parents moved to a
rented accommodation very close by. With the help of relatives
from both maternal and paternal side, they tried to start from a
scratch. (Gas cylinder, bedding, some utensils were generously
given by them to ensure basic commodities till they managed to
smuggle/ bring some stuff out from our Srinagar home).
The Jammu heat was awful and they could not afford cooler or
fridge. My father, an engineer, retired from Border Roads Org had
put all his savings into a construction business partnership with a
Muslim friend. As he could not return back, all his money was
stuck there. Penniless, he started looking for job and after a while
managed to get work as an Insurance Surveyor. Those were hard
and trying times for both of them. My mother would boil food and
milk several times a day to ensure it doesn’t get spoiled. They
would live on meagre income and walk long distances to save
money on transport. Yet they had a smile and encouraging words
for all especially the ones who were depressed and getting
pessimist/desolate about their circumstances. He would even help
others (who were worse off than us) to the best of his ability.
Meanwhile I had finished my PG and was looking for a job much
against my father’s wishes. He wanted me to pursue further studies
and start my PhD. I was aware of our financial constraints and the
money that would be involved. I wanted to get a job so that I could
chip in financially as well. I managed to get an ad-hoc job at
AIIMS and I still remember the joy in his voice as it was India’s
premier Institute and would entail him subsidized and immediate
treatment should there be a need. I was at Delhi now staying with
my father’s youngest brother (there was a huge age gap between
them and moreover he was like a son that my father didn’t have). I
always thought of him as a brother rather than an uncle and called
him Bhaiya and his wife Bhabhi. Both were amazing and cared for
me very much. They had a lovely and new born daughter Shivani
and she was the apple of our eyes. Life was going fine.
That Fateful night
38

treatment should there be a need. I was at Delhi now staying with
my father’s youngest brother (there was a huge age gap between
them and moreover he was like a son that my father didn’t have). I
always thought of him as a brother rather than an uncle and called
him Bhaiya and his wife Bhabhi. Both were amazing and cared for
me very much. They had a lovely and new born daughter Shivani
and she was the apple of our eyes. Life was going fine.
That Fateful night

My elder sister unfortunately broke her leg and my mother came to
Delhi to help her (she was bed bound as her whole leg was in a
cast). During the day my mum would go to my sister’s place to
look after her and come back to spend the night at Bhaiya’s place.
It was the evening of 14th August 1993. We had all returned from
work, mom was washing the clothes, Bhabhi was cooking dinner, I
was playing with my niece and Bhaiya was doing some office
work. I heard in the news on TV that 14 Hindus travelling in a bus
were massacred at Doda that morning. It was the terrorists’
Independence Day gift to India. I was sad to hear that but carried
along with routine housework, little knowing that this incident
would soon turn our world upside down.
I remember my brother talking to someone over phone and saying
loudly and agitatedly, “hey kya chukh che wanan, ye masa wan”!
(what are you saying- please don’t say so!) He threw the phone and
pushed the table and kicking the chairs left the house, locking us
from outside. I assumed something bad had happened at work. I
picked up the phone and realized that it was from my mum’s
brother who also lived in Delhi. His opening line to my hello was
“Asi chi paymech trath” (It’s us who are the unfortunate ones)!!
These words still echo in my mind as chilling and stunning as these
were that fateful evening.
He told me that my father was among the 14 Hindus killed on that
bus. My body went numb and heart felt like a slab of ice, heavier
than a boulder. I did not react, just heard him sobbing. My mother
and Bhabhi also heard it. I had only heard the phrase “the blood
drained from her body” but saw it actually happen as I saw the
colour drain from my mother’s face, turning to chalky pale. A
fountain of cries, wailing erupted, I just stood watching, not being
able to react or comfort them.
Slowly the phone got busier with some people

enquiring/confirming the news. At some point Bhaiya had returned
after having made calls from STD booth nearby to verify the news.
Other family members started arriving as the night progressed. My
eyes could only see weeping, chest beating and people consoling
39

each other and me as well. I felt horrible, as I was not crying for
my father while everyone else was. I was just carrying out
instructions like a zombie. We were on the 4th floor and still
remember my sister, with her broken leg, being carried up all those
flight of stairs. It just felt like a bad dream and I thought if I close
my eyes and open them again it would all go away.
I must have slept away as I remember my Bhabhi telling me it was

time to go to the airport. She had packed some clothes for me. How
could I dose off with so much of mayhem around? Did I sleep off
or had my mind blanked out some of that time, I have never been
able to know. I do remember handing over some medicine books
that I had borrowed from some residents to my Bhabhi’s father to
be returned back to AIIMS (a part of my mind must have been
working after all). I had no clue about our future. I was suddenly
fatherless; my mother was my responsibility now. We were
homeless and my job was a temporary one.
Bhaiya had managed to book around 14 or so tickets in the first

available plane. I have the biggest regret of not knowing how much
money was spent on the airfares, as I could not muster the courage
to ask Bhaiya all these years. (Now I will never know as he too
joined my father in heaven 6 years ago). It was my first ever air
travel and what a way to go! Our group was so conspicuous, silent,
sad, sobbing and not touching the breakfast that was served to us.
After landing, I was praying that it takes forever to reach my
uncle’s house in Patoli as we were told that the “body” has reached
there. It felt strange to hear my father suddenly being referred to, as
the “body” and I wanted to punch the folks who said that. Upon
reaching there, all hell broke loose. There was an ocean of
mourners who were hugging and consoling us before we could
enter the room where I saw my father like I had never seen him
before. He was lying on a slab of ice, covered by a white sheet,
which looked like “tie and dye” cloth as blood, and body fluids
were still oozing out and the cloth was unable to soak it. My aunt
kept on mopping the surrounding area to wipe the blood and body
fluids, but it was not very effective. I could only see his face and it
had lots of grazes and some wounds and a bullet hole on the side.
40

He didn’t look like my daddy at all. It felt strange to touch his face,
trying hard not to touch the grazes and the wounds as there was not
much left to stroke. It was over 24 hours since he had been killed
and putrefaction has set in. Despite a thick log of incense burning
next to him, I could smell something else. All of us were
inconsolable but because I wasn’t able to cry, family telling me to
cry was smothering me. It was suffocating and I wanted to run
away, far away from all this madness, as I did not belong there.
This couldn’t be happening to me, as only a few days back I had
spoken to him and everything was fine then.
As they started to prepare him for his last journey, I saw him
without a sheet on, his body riddled with bullets. His abdomen
stitched up very poorly after post mortem, the skin on his back had
peeled off at many places as he was transported from Doda on the
floor of a rickety bus without a sheet underneath. Why should they
have bothered? It doesn’t hurt the dead anymore and they don’t
require dignity! He was not at all like my beautiful father, this
person was a stranger who didn’t talk or smile like daddy did. All
these 25 years I have tried hard to forget that sight but it is etched
so deeply into my memory. Every time I close my eyes and think
of my father, this is the picture that always comes first. It takes
effort to recollect him alive and smiling.
I watched quietly as they prepared him, got the “Paat (wooden
bench for carrying body to the crematorium); decorated his body
with some flowers; transferred him onto the Paat and tied him to it
so that he doesn’t fall off. I accompanied him to the shamshan ghat
(crematorium) and I was occasionally allowed to hold one of the 4
legs. He was so heavy. People kept on chanting something like
“khemta yoni aprampaar, Shiv Shambu” (prayer to Lord Shiva). I
still can’t shake this verse off. For a long time this phrase used to
enter uninvited and play in my head. Why did Shambu did this to
me? What had we done to deserve this?
One of my cousin held on to my hand as I watched silently the
cremation preparations. When Bhaiya lit the pyre I wanted to stop
him as that would finish all trace/evidence of daddy, there’d be no
more of him left physically ever after. I slowly and silently saw
41

him turning to ashes. Many bullets were recovered from the ashes
afterwards. The number doesn’t matter.
One of the eyewitnesses/survivors later said that daddy was
tortured before they shot at him. He had tried to reason with those
evil men that killing is not good etc. He had tried to trick the
militants into believing that he’s a Muslim and had recited some
verses of Quran. However his other colleague travelling with him
(who also was a Hindu) called out his bluff. They ripped his
clothes and saw his “Jenau” (sacred thread) and had then kicked,
punched and hit him with the butt of the gun. Daddy’s post mortem
report had mentioned broken ribs also.
Dealing with grief

The maatam (mourning) was observed at my uncle’s house. My
relatives would not have let my mother live alone in the rented
rooms, so it was decided to hand over the place. The landlord also
wanted us to vacate as his son was getting married soon. My
parents had the luxury of buying a cooler just 2 months and a
fridge 15 days before it all ended. All her life my mother yearned
for an independent life where she could be in charge. My sister and
I were treated to lavish Kashmiri food and their undivided attention
and that little time is stored as a golden time in my life. How it
changed suddenly, with that one phone call.
My mother was on heavy sedatives and had turned into a stone, so

much in shock and unresponsive, she would just stare into the
space, not communicating at all. She had always supported a “big
bindi” on her forehead. She looked so different without it, scary
and gaunt and she looked like a stranger. She needed support to
walk to other room or to go to toilet. It felt as if I had lost her as
well. She was just 48 and overnight I saw her aging, looking
decades older. My father had just turned 50 and hardly seen much
other than struggle and hardships in life.
I often wondered what his last thoughts were when he was dying
away, all alone and away from his loved ones. Did it hurt very
much? Did he took long to die or was it instant? Did he think about
my mother and me, his unfinished responsibilities? We had no
42

house of our own; I was still unmarried, what would happen to us?
Was it very painful, left to die by inches, waiting painfully till his
last breath? No one should die like that. I remember some people
mentioning that despite heavy rains for 2-3 days the area where
they were killed (Sarthal in Doda) still remained full of blood. 14
people killed for no reason except that they belonged to a minority
religion. How I wished that we were not Hindus, not wearing
“Jenau” (sacred thread), he might have just survived.
For many years I fooled myself in believing/ pretending that he had
escaped and that it was someone else’s body that we cremated. He
would come back someday soon and all will be fine. Sometimes I
was angry with him for dying so soon, as I felt betrayed by him for
leaving us in a lurch. Some day in future, I hope to be able to visit
that site and bow to the ground where he breathed his last and meet
some survivors of that incident to get some more information and
hopefully get some peace.
During the 13 days of maatam, (mourning) I often (preferably

alone as I was mostly accompanied by family who didn’t want me
to go there alone) went to daddy’s rented place where his clothes
that he had worn before he left for that ill-fated journey were still
hanging from the peg. I would hold them to my face and heart as
they still smelled of him, his fragrance that I had clung to during
my childhood and growing up years, which made had me feel safe
and reassured. I begged my aunts not to wash it for many days.
His blood soaked Youni, handkerchief and locket, his last
belongings (that was handed over to us by police), I washed gently,
talking to him, like a lost child asking him what to do and how to
carry on living without him. I had preserved these last belongings
along with his watch and the September 1993 issue of “Koshur
Samachar” (his bullet ridden picture was on the front cover with
details of the incident in that issue) for a very long time, hidden
away at a closet in Bhaiya’s home so that my family don’t see it
and get pained. It was my little shrine, which I would visit and look
at and hold, in my moments of weakness, when everything looked
bleak and unbearable, to draw strength and comfort from, to show
43

me some light and a path in the big ocean of darkness that I was
thrown into, lost and alone!
My story is only one among thousands, there is much of pain out
there, people who have experienced far worse, minorities wherever
they are, have had to suffer in some way.
How I wish I could
Fill the hollow of loneliness
Dull the ache of pain and
Wipe the swim of helpless tears from my eyes…..
Tears in my eyes, I wipe away

But the pain in my heart is there to stay.
44

9.
9. Hatai
HataiKousi
kusi trath
Mr. Praveen Sher
(What a catastrophe!)
“Hatai kousi trath” was an echo that filled the fateful night where
any last thread meaning of the word Kashmiriyat was truly laid to
rest forever. Even after so many years, at this moment I get goose
bumps thinking about it. A prime time in a student’s life, just
finishing first Board exams and dreaming of a career, was
murdered with the overnight upheaval which just reached a
pinnacle. From the earlier times limited to celebrating every run
scored against India in a cricket match, the game had changed; they
were now scoring by targeting Kashmiri Pandits with live bullets.
Living in Rainawari, before and after the black day was like a
horror movie in which friends turn to ruthless villains after interval.
I lived in an area where Misha Sahib, Lokut Mandir and a Mosque
were all along the same road over viewing each other. Celebrating
Misha Sahibs Urs was a moment to cherish having food pandals
(stalls) and sweets from both communities facing each other on the
path to the shrine. Just imagine, the same affectionate neighbour
that was on your beck and call was now just baying for your blood.
This new situation was spiralling out of control and Kashmiri
Pandits were struggling to react to this new reality.
Living in a predominantly Pandit neighbourhood, killing of Shri
Tika Lal Taploo was the start of new vicious dawn filled with life
threatening tension. The sermons from the group about how
Hindus must conduct their lives, newspapers asking Pandits to
leave, and setting Pakistani time on watches were a new norm of a
day. Burning of schools and particularly D.A.V Rainawari was
frightening for all of us living there. Each day my father’s friends
and neighbours used huddle together at our place discussing the
situation, trying to find a way out. There was restriction on going
out or having conversations outside. Youth and children were not
allowed to play outdoors. Everything started looking unfathomable.
The ordeals of those days was getting from bad to worse with new
developments and with information of gruesome murders going
45

around. How we got through that time still haunts. Just at that time
my father friend’s family lived temporarily at our home, as his
house was surrounded by Muslims.
Then came the point of no return, when loud speakers from the
mosque started hurling abuses and anti-Indian slogans. I could not
believe my ears. Even before brain started to assimilate the things
going around, the sense of fear had crept in. Every one of us were
getting prepared for unthinkable like abductions/killings. The
messages from mosque loudspeakers talking about Pandit men
leaving but leaving the women folk behind sent chills down my
spine. What a cruel and cold moment to behold when all females in
my house were contemplating suicide if people barraged inside and
kids were to hide in the attic behind the wood logs kept there to
help us warm in winters. That moment left a permanent scar. Even
after so many years, my mind has frozen as I describe those
moments. After few days neighbours started gathering courage and
decided to flee.
On short notice it dawned to us that we will be leaving. Taxi

drivers belonging to Jammu were hired and we left in the middle of
night. On that day three families left in taxis leaving behind big 3-
storied houses and belongings. What made us even more scared
was the announcement from Mosque about us, rejoicing that we
were leaving - when we actually even hadn’t left. All the way till
we crossed the Banihal tunnel we were expecting worse. What
looked even more surreal was the sheer number of people that were
escaping. That moment felt that the word ‘Humanity’ was being
erased. Only a few months after we left; our neighbour Shri Rattan
Lal Raina was ruthlessly murdered; a message to let the remaining
Pandits know that Kashmir does not belong to them. When we
were leaving, we had asked him to join us, but the Muslim
neighbours had professed to protect him as their own brother. They
couldn’t or they didn’t.
May the souls of people killed by the terrorists rest in peace. In
addition to those killed by bombs, guns, and grenades; raped and
tortured; thousands died in the hot Jammu plains of heat, stress,
46

snake bites and in inhuman conditions of the camps. Totally
preventable deaths and distress – another by-product of terrorism.
47

10. Tortured. Exiled. Survived
Mrs. Raynoo Mattoo
Memories jumble up and mess my attempt to put the dreadful
events of the winter of 1989-90 into a chronological order. Instead,
it comes out as a scattered volcanic eruption of events where I see
myself as a helpless, mute witness - memories that exhaust the
mind. We used to live in a place where, at dusk time temple bells
once used to mingle with the mosque Azaan in an incredibly
harmonious melody. That winter saw the temple bells quietened.
And the now prolonged, exasperating noises from the mosques
radicalised people in the name of religion. Many more loud
speakers were installed on many nearby houses warning us to leave
or accept Islam and shouting anti Indian slogans.
Tortured.
It started as everyday bullying and harassment. ‘“Hey, Batnee!
Why are you wearing the tyok? (Bindi - religious mark worn in the
middle of the forehead by Hindus) It is not allowed in the school”,
ordered the prefect with a smirk on her face. That conveyed the
unwritten rules of the land. Till then, I could wear my tyok
rightfully, every day. Not anymore! Walking back from school, we
changed our path to home. We couldn’t stand their constant stare,
followed by mocking shouts, “Dali battee, dffa gachiv!” (Oh
coward Hindus, Get lost). Me and my cousin were walking down
the road and someone asked him what the time was? No sooner he
said the time, he was showered with punches and kicks and asked
to change the time to Pakistan Standard Time, instead of Indian
Standard Time. Sometimes the local shopkeepers would give
change in Pakistani currency with Jinnah picture, not Gandhi. His
stern gaze warning us to accept it. One day while buying some
bakery, we heard some bullet shots. The baker pulled us into the
shop, and pulled down the shutters. We spent hours there, terrified
and crying. Often a sudden commotion was heard on the streets
and mum would rush to pull the curtains down, asking us to crouch
down and stay quiet. The elders whispered about some procession
and encounter outside and then suddenly we would hear sound of
48

bullets and screams. All the kids huddled under a blanket. Often,
my father wouldn’t return home till midnight. Horrified, he would
whisper about getting caught in cross firing people falling in blood
pools.
On day, our worried mother huddled us young girls into a room,
murmuring under her breath. “Why on earth did they all come at
this time?” It was a group of our neighbours who had descended
into our house without any notice. They were once our close
friends, but wore a different aura that day. At a time when most of
our men folk were out at work, they turned up at our homes to
assure us that we were safe. But their glances told us otherwise.
They made us uneasy in our own homes while sipping the salty tea,
which they demanded my mum make. A strange killing silence fell
in the room when one of them uttered that “Your daughters are
ours.” One of them looked at me and said, “She’s my favourite.” I
didn’t like it.
The decision to leave was made soon after. Abruptly, papa,

mummy, uncles, aunties were busy picking and packing. But how
could we pack away our home? There was limited space in the
trucks and no homes to go to. Wearing layers upon layers of
clothes, picking up our prized possessions: books; we left home,
greeted by the darkness of the unknown outside. We left in good
faith that we’d return one day. It’s been nearly 30 years and we
haven’t.
Exiled.
In Jammu, we landed in the common room of a temple. There were
many like us. Queuing for food and it felt odd. Spending night on a
bare floor under tired vigilant eyes of parents was a different
experience. For many days young girls and ladies could not
shower; whilst tolerating heat of the plains which was a total
contrast to fresh cool breeze of the valley. Initially, we spent many
suns and moons in different corners of hospital lobbies, temple
complexes and warehouses. By now we had become experts in
packing and unpacking our portable home. Sometimes the rooms
that we got wouldn’t even have windows. So in the blistering over
49

45 degrees heat, our bedrooms were always terrace, for toilet there
were open fields and for bathrooms some enclosures. Initially
villagers gave us food for a few days. We learnt to sleep,
consciously aware of the strangers’ uncomfortable gaze. Trying
hard to cover the ever-blossoming youth, crouching on the
steaming cemented floor, trusting and watching the star-strewn
sky.
It was dangerous. I was sitting on a bus and overheard
conversations between two strangers, praising the bravery and faith
of a Kashmiri-Hindu family, who were visited by a three-foot
snake, which loitered in through the only door of the room wherein
four ladies were celebrating the arrival of a new baby. My wet eyes
smiled, recounting the episode when the distance between my
sister holding the baby and the coiled snake was less than the
length of snake itself.
Survived.
I was the first one to grab a job in nearby village school and soon
after my sister joined as well – doubling the meagre family income.
Wearing not summer friendly clothes, wadding our way through
fields, pebbled dusty roads, dipping the blistered and scorched feet
in nearby flowing canal, quenching thirst with water from a hand
pump and braving our way - we were resilient. After a yearlong
struggle by some youth workers we were offered admissions in
different schools, colleges and universities and we were steered
into the trusted and well-treaded path of education.
We never believed in outburst of anger, or violent ways. We never
picked up guns. Belonging to a 100% literate, graduate community,
choice was always clear. I along with my sister were back to school
and college. Evening tuition classes and weekend work did help
financially, but lack of proper sleep in absence of comfortable beds
coupled with lack of healthy food, took its toll on our youth and
health.
I often get recurring dreams of carelessly running through the pious
courtyard of Mata Kheer Bhawani pilgrimage and then falling in
the river and drowning. Sometimes I have nightmares about the
50

monsters that confront me when I walk proudly into my school. Or
being tied to my bed and screaming “I am in my own home, really
this is mine, leave me alone”. The trauma shook my initial career
and married life and it’s only now that I am beginning to name this
emotion. I have slowly started to get on with my life and build a
future I and my family truly deserve.
Years passed and the wrath of weather, circumstances withered the

emotional and physical health of my mum. I remember her
narrating the repeated sagas of happy home and gesturing, eyes
closed, how she would clean the Dhaan (hearth) on special
occasions in kitchen. Something was wrong, the early morning
melodious Mantras sung on the beat of chapati dough by Mummy
were becoming less and less frequent. More often she would
implore me to take on the responsibility, with a guilt in her eyes.
The same awkward shame I saw in her eyes when her long dense
tresses were shaved off and surgeons tried to rectify the emotional
trauma under scissors. It was too late to realise how much weight
she was carrying on her head since ages and beyond resurrection
was the gradual death she was dying since years.
Her children inherit her long dense tresses and deep melancholy
mind.
But somewhere we have lost the cultural legacy that could be
passed on to our children.
Our children have acquired proficiency in different languages but
struggle with my mother tongue. We could make them capable of
securing positions in top universities but failed to give them the
flavour of big happy families. We have own houses; own cars and
we travel but we don’t have homes and we don’t go to our
homeland. We are still in waiting.
51

11. Kicked into Exile
Mr. Sandeep Lahori
I was born in a town called Shopian in South Kashmir. The place
was blessed with enormous natural beauty, with rivers having clear
water, ponds and beautiful mountain range with snow laden peaks
visible in the background throughout the year. During my early
years, as I remember it, the place was a very peaceful in general
barring a few incidents. There were several Hindu temples in the
area – including the famous ‘Kapal Mochan Mandir’ where
thousands of pilgrims used to visit during the month of ‘Shraavan’
(monsoon).
However, as I stepped into my teenage, things started to change
rapidly. We started to hear the horror stories of bomb blasts, firing,
burning of schools, bridges and selective killings of prominent
right-thinking people - mostly from the minority Hindu
community, like Tika Lal Taploo and Neel Kanth Ganjoo, etc. Till
then, I had been completely ignorant and unaware of the ground
realities and the undercurrents, and I thought this craziness was
going to get over soon. Little did I realise that this was just the
beginning of a very long and destructive Islamic Jihad.
It was the month of December 1989, when Rubiyya Syed, the

daughter of then Home Minister of India, Mufti Mohd. Syed, was
kidnapped under a well-planned and executed conspiracy to secure
the release of some dreaded terrorists. It was that phase in the
history when whole of the valley started to burn. There was a huge
Jamia Masjid (mosque) in Shopian where thousands of Muslims
from neighbouring places used to visit for Friday prayers.
However, the prayers were replaced by anti-Indian and anti-Hindu
sloganeering, and provocative lectures from the loud speakers.
After the so-called prayers, thousands of people used to take
processions with slogans like ‘hum kya chahte? Nizame mustafa’
(we want to have Islamic rule), and create havoc among the
minority community. On one such fateful day, the mob burnt down
a locally famous temple of Lord Rama called ‘Thakur Dwar’. A
big Dharamshala adjacent to it was also burnt and its’ inhabitants
52

were looted, dragged and cruelly beaten up. In order to control the
mob, police had to resort to firing – which killed 2 to 3 people.
There was panic and chaos everywhere.
On the fateful day 19th January 1990, Kashmiri Hindu community
members were asked to leave or face death through the loud
speakers of hundreds of mosques and also some local newspapers.
During this period, prominent personalities were killed like ‘Lassa
Koul’ (Director of Doordarshan), Durai Swamy (Executive
Director of Indian Oil) and many more. This sent shock waves
across the valley, and we could hardly sleep during the nights. The
place had clearly become horrifying and extremely unsafe for the
non-Muslims (infidels) in general. Curfews, demonstrations,
killings and arson had become a norm of everyday life. Almost
every day, we began to hear about killings of one or more
prominent Hindu community members.
My parents were government employees, and had recently built a
big house with so many hopes and aspirations attached to it. They
had other ancestral land and properties as well. With a heavy heart,
as the situation only worsened day by day, they decided to send me
and my sister to our Aunt’s home (who used to live in Jammu) till
the situation had improved. My parents had incredible attachment
to their native place and did not want to leave at all. However, few
days later, my father found a threatening letter from inside our
main gate asking him to leave the valley or face consequences.
That was the point when my parents decided to leave and join us in
Jammu leaving behind everything. My father did go back after few
days to see if he could get any useful stuff from the home. He
couldn’t do so due to certain circumstances and had to flee back to
Jammu on his 2 wheeler – covering a distance of more than 300
kilometres. Later, we came to know that our house had been burnt
to ashes by a mob. This left my parents completely shattered as
they had spent years to build their dream home. One day, we heard
that one of our Hindu neighbours (who was still in the valley) was
shot dead – he was only in his twenties.
Even after fleeing the burning valley, our woes did not end in
Jammu. Kashmiri Hindus started to live like refugees in their own
53

country – with several camp colonies set up everywhere. People
who used to live in massive 5-6 bed houses in the valley had to
shift in small tents or one-bedroom accommodation in scorching
heat of 40–45°C with no air conditioners or fridges. Hundreds of
people died of heat strokes as well as bites from snakes and
scorpions.
The heat was intolerable for me and my sister. We both had to face
our State Board Examinations. Although, we were fortunate
enough to get a room in Jammu unlike many others who had to live
in tents, yet it was the reading room, living room and the bedroom
for us and our parents. We used to sweat all day while travelling
from home to school and then to private tuitions (yes, even in those
circumstances). Many times, I would nearly collapse on the road
with a heat stroke. The way our parents remained calm and handled
all hardships while still doing everything to keep our education
going was a great lesson of life that no book could have ever taught
us. Our parents; like most other parents of the displaced
community; did everything they could to ensure uninterrupted
education of my generation. For this, I and my generation will be
forever grateful to them.
Most of my friends and relatives are settled now around the world,
but those memories of utter devastation of our homeland remain in
back of our minds. One day, we will definitely go back to the land
of our ancestors and make it the paradise that it used to be.
54

12. Witness Account
Dr. Sanjay Raina
I am witness to the violent communal incident at Wanpooh in
district Anantnag at the end of 1989. Just like in 1986, violent
Islamic mobs burnt Hindu shops and houses and desecrated the
temples. They removed the Shivalinga from the temple and threw it
into the Jhelum river. Properties were destroyed and Hindus were
forced to flee. My parents sent me to live with my aunt for a few
months in Srinagar.
Habba Kadal, Srinagar wasn’t safe either. We used to live in Reshi

Moholla in Jan-Feb 1990. The atmosphere was full of fear. I
remember the vegetable vendors prominently displaying lists of
names, called the hit list, of Kashmiri Pandits. The list clearly said
that these Kafirs must leave or die. This was an open threat which
the terrorists were only too eager to implement.
One day playing with my friends in Shallakadal, I heard gun shots.
A Pandit had been killed point blank in broad daylight. We heard
they urinated on his dead body and the Muslims around said it is a
savaab; a good deed to urinate on a kafir. My friend Satish Tiku
was also killed similarly in broad daylight.
Soon after my mother’s cousin brother in Kulgam, Shurat village
was killed by terrorists. Radha Krishna Tickoo, was a young man
in his mid-30’s and their family were the only Hindu house in that
village. The gentleman had been to Delhi for his examination and
interview. On his way back he was kidnapped, tortured and killed.
My uncle Somnath Hakeem, living in Natipora in Srinagar was

killed in his own house when he was drying clothes on a clothes
line. His son-in-law was a judge in the Supreme Court of India.
News of murders were coming thick and fast. My brother was told
that his name was on a hit list and he better flee. My mum was told
that my uncle would be killed that very night in his home in Habba
kadal. These death threats were enough to scare us. Our families
55

including two young girls immediately fled from Srinagar to
Jammu.
It was very different to our living conditions in Jammu. The space
was small; we lived in shabby conditions and under lot of stress.
However, our family was resilient and focused on education and
career. Through sheer dint of hard work I studied medicine and
became a doctor in the most difficult of circumstances. I am now
working for the NHS. After 1990, I went back to Kashmir few
times and also visited my ancestral home in Habba Kadal, Reshi
Mohalla. However, I felt no emotions or pain when I visited. The
anger from betrayal and injustice seems all dormant inside me.
My son, 17 has never seen his ancestral home. He thinks that, the
exodus was deceitful and hateful as the original inhabitants,
Kashmiri Pandits were made to flee the valley. It is sad to see how
our communities and traditions are fragmented with people
scattered all over the globe. What is more disappointing is that
some people still live in vary pathetic conditions, 3 decades later,
and are not provided any support from the government. These
communities are damaged through socio economic inequality,
genocide and years of being treated as second class citizens in their
own country to this day. This is a massive injustice and needs to be
brought to the attention on the national/global scale.
Returning to Kashmir now is not a viable solution to the trauma
and discomfort felt by Kashmiri Hindus. Kashmiri Hindus have
made their place in this world, that itself is a success story.
However, I feel there should be open dialogue about what
happened 30 years ago and empowerment of this community to
create a stronger sense of belonging. There should be open
discussions and structured education about situations and events of
the three decades. The political agendas of corrupt politics has
done nothing to solve these issues.
As for Kashmir, I feel there is deep unrest between Muslims and

the Government. There needs to be education enforced by the state
in schools backed by clear facts to deliver an unbiased history of
J&K. Democracy isn’t fair in these regions and the government
56

needs to do more to support the views and human rights of the
minorities and displaced Kashmir Pandit aborigines of the land.
There should be open, non-biased political discussions about the
situation so myths spread by politicians can be dispelled. There
should be tougher laws on political extremism in the area as these
people should face consequences. Rights to free speech is allowed
but that shouldn’t promote violence from citizens. There must be a
crackdown on corrupt politicians controlling the region as they
have only inflamed tensions and not supported minorities at all. To
further solve these problems there need to be actual action/activism
by the Kashmiri Pandit community to raise awareness and solve
these problems.
57

13. Life in Exile
Dr. Shafalica Bhan Kotwal
Jag Jag Mohan ko bhag bhag Mohan kar deinge

Leike raheinge kashmir
Kashmir ki taqdeer Benazir Benazir
(We will chase away Jagmohan, Governor of Kashmir. We will

take Kashmir by force and Benazir Bhutto –Pakistan PM- will rule
it.)
The TV screen in the shop inside a small by lane of Shakti Nagar

Jammu was telecasting Benazir Bhutto’s speech and a small crowd
had gathered around it. I shuddered and held my cousin’s hand
tighter as he picked up some groceries. Then the tears came and by
the time I reached back to my aunt’s home I was consumed by
grief.
The year was 1990. January. I left Kashmir precisely the day after
the local Muslim population came out on the streets asking for
Azadi (freedom) along with slogans of ‘We want Kashmir with
Pandit women but without their men, ‘Kafirs will be killed’ etc.
The whole city of Srinagar was under strict curfew and my father
somehow convinced the Border security forces men guarding the
streets to let us go to the airport which was only a couple of miles
away from my house. I think they took pity on me cowering on the
back seat of the Maruti 800 car covered in a black shawl; and let us
go. I had left with a box containing my mother’s jewellery and my
certificates. There were only 3 or 4 officials at the airport and they
were not sure if the flight would even depart. One of them looked
at me clutching the box of jewellery hard and told my dad ‘it’s
good you are sending your daughter away; conditions are not
good’. This did nothing to ease my nerves and I only breathed
again when the flight finally took off. The Air India flight carried
only 2 passengers, myself and an elderly gentleman.
58

Jammu was my next destination. Soon after my dad’s best friend
was shot dead outside his house and my dad found himself on a hit
list. He left in his car for Jammu straight from his office without
any belongings. The only person left behind in our house was my
mother. She too left a few days later, after a stranger came to our
house looking for my dad. We stayed in my aunt’s house. She had
not only us to look after but everyone from her in-laws house had
also arrived, some in a truck with suitcases, some empty handed
like us.
Summer was fast approaching and things were increasingly getting

difficult for us who were only used to temperate climate of
Kashmir. At night everybody used to sleep on the roof on charpoys
(portable beds) swatting mosquitos and talking about Kashmir and
what will happen to us, till the wee hours of the morning. I had just
finished one year of medical school and had no idea if I could carry
on with my studies. I contacted a few of my friends who like me
had arrived in Jammu. In the absence of easy access to internet and
phones it was extremely difficult to plan anything or discuss
anything. My parents were preoccupied with daily routines in an
unfamiliar place so I couldn’t discuss anything with them. So I and
my friends decided to meet every day and visit the Kashmiri Pandit
Sabha (Community Centre) in Amphalla to get some answers.
The first day we landed there we couldn’t believe our eyes.

Truckloads of families from all across Kashmir were arriving on a
daily basis. Old ladies wearing the traditional pheran (woollen
tunic) and men wearing turbans suddenly finding themselves in the
middle of an alien town with the blazing sun making it difficult for
them to even breathe. There was complete chaos and slowly the
realization began to sink in that this might be permanent and not
the temporary displacement form our homeland that we hoped and
prayed for.
One fine day out of desperation few of us went to Jammu medical

college hoping we could attend classes there. A hostile student
group there shouted at us to leave and the situation turned ugly.
The principal was asked to intervene. He in no uncertain terms told
59

us the same, we were not welcome there as there was no ‘official’
directive to accommodate us. Everything looked bleak. I pleaded
with my parents that we needed to leave Jammu, I felt stifled there.
Then in the black cloud here suddenly appeared a silver lining, my
dad was able to secure a job transfer to Delhi. We huddled in our
car with meagre belongings and headed to Delhi one hot summer
day in May 1990.
As the saying goes, from the frying pan into the fire. Delhi was
even hotter than Jammu.
Our new dwelling was a small rented flat on the top floor of a place
called Tilak Nagar, while we waited for GOI to allocate us an
official residence. Tilak Nagar has the sad reputation of housing
families of those killed in the 1984 riots following Indira Gandhi’s
death. Our next door neighbour was a lady whose son and husband
had both been burnt alive by an angry mob. he whole apartment
complex was full of families who had lost at least one or two
family members to an angry, blood thirsty mobs similar to the one
we had left behind. It was a sad place. The only solace was a small
Gurdwara next to the apartments where families congregated in the
evenings. I found myself drawn to the Gurdwara and spent quite a
lot of time there as there was nothing else to do during the day. We
had running water only one hour in the morning and rest of the day
we spent ferrying buckets of water up four flight of stairs from the
tap at the Gurdwara. Scarcity of water was unknown to us in
Kashmir but times had changed for us. Small things cheered me up
every now and then, like the first cooler we purchased a few days
later and I could finally sleep at night. I tasted fruits like litchi
which I had never had before in Kashmir and fresh juicy water
melons became my staple diet through the day as the heat had
killed my appetite. I used to wonder how people in Delhi could
even bear to enter the kitchen in this heat, let alone cook or eat.
Every time I left home during the day I thought I was going to end
up having a heat stroke.
60

I started making endless rounds with my dad to the Kashmiri
Samiti office trying to find out whether it would be possible for me
to continue with my medical degree. Months passed and nothing
happened. There was deafening silence from the government and
its machinery. Finally in August we heard that some states across
the country had agreed to accommodate medical students. Some
agreed to accommodate just 3/4, others more. I was sent off to a
medical school in Bhopal my best friends were sent elsewhere.
Three of us from Srinagar landed in Bhopal. We were given the
name ‘Gul, Gulshan, Gulfam’ almost immediately on arrival to our
new class, after the popular TV serial doing the rounds then. The
name stayed with us for the next 5 years. After the initial hesitation
we were welcomed by the local students for which I will be
eternally grateful. I completed my degree. My parents moved to an
official residence in a few months and set up another home. I
visited when I could but could never think of Delhi as my home.
Home would always be Srinagar. I promised myself that I would
leave the country at the first opportunity. Marriage provide the
opportunity and I started a new life in the U.K.
Nearly 30 years later home is still Srinagar...
61

14. One Life changing event
Ms. Sonal Sher
My story is dedicated to Boytoth, Babi, Mumma and Papa. Without

you, I wouldn’t be here.
A significant part of my identity is based on Loss. My choices, the

decisions I take even today, have been shaped by one singular
event that not only changed my life permanently, but also the lives
of everyone I knew as a child. An entire way of life was lost when
we were forced into exile because a community, like a tree, needs
roots to survive and we were forcibly uprooted from our homes.
We are Kashmiri Pandits and wherever we might be, our roots and
our hearts are inextricably linked to Kashmir.
I am of a similar age as my parents were, when we were forced to

leave Srinagar with just the clothes on our backs; a place where we
had spent our entire lives, a place we called Home. As a mother to
two young children, just the thought of what they had to undergo
brings shivers to my spine. The courage it took, the fear of the
unknown that they must have fought against, the determination it
took to leave everything familiar behind and build a new future
from nothing so that their children were safe from harm, is the
ultimate sacrifice one can make. In Jammu, listened to taunts and
jibes with heads bowed, lived in one room after leaving huge
homes, got called cowards for not fighting back. Despite losing
their entire lives, despite all the uncertainty, fear and trauma; they
made sure we attended school, somehow made sure we had food,
clothing, paid tuition fees and always protected and sheltered us
from the worst; and for that I will forever be grateful.
Due to one life changing event, we have all suffered in our own
way and it hurts to try and remember. A young girl whose idyllic
childhood revolved around school, her friends, books, dollhouses,
toys and her favourite red bicycle, suddenly found herself thrown
into an alien environment where men stared at her with a gaze that
she didn’t recognise. Being followed every single day in Jammu by
strange men on her way to school and back; being scared but not
being able to vocalise it. Having to grow up too soon! Kashmiri
62

girls were fair game to Jammu men. I remember the times where
the only place to shower before going to school was a tiny alcove
outdoors and being anxious and praying no one walked past despite
waking up really early. Passing out due to the heat, given injections
and medication for months that my parents couldn’t afford.
Afterwards, not having my parents around as they were living in a
different part of the country, living with different sets of relatives
and my studies suffering.
The trauma is internalised and left untouched in the dark recesses

of my mind and I realise I am missing huge chunks of time. But I
do remember moments. It was March, like it is now. The year was
1990, nearly 30 years ago. Despite a void stretching between now
and then; I remember. Somehow to this day I still feel the cool
breeze and the warmth from the sunshine that touch my cheeks as I
walk out of my home in Rawalpura, Srinagar. I was carrying my
baby cousin and meeting our family at a different location because
my parents didn’t want it to be obvious that we were leaving. I
remember looking at the house that had been the only home I
knew. It stood quietly, a dignified sentinel holding a lifetime of
memories on that beautiful spring day. I knew in the depths of my
heart that I would not be returning. I looked back one last time and
captured it in my mind and kept walking. I did not know where I
was going that day or what awaited all of us; that moment exists in
isolation because I simply do not recall how I got to Jammu.
The sequence of events that led to this ordeal was slow and
insidious, like water seeping through cracks in a boat threatening to
engulf and drown you. All you can do is jump into the water and
swim for safety. Whispers from my best friend in school where she
said you people are leaving soon; she had suddenly started to dress
unusually, covering her head. Open proclamations of Jihad in local
newspapers from known terrorist organisations. I could hear the
adults talking amongst themselves about how it might make sense
to go away to Jammu for a few months until this madness is sorted,
can’t take long, this is India, the government will never allow these
Pakistani stooges to create havoc, Indian army is powerful, one
shot will leave them scurrying.
But, that didn’t happen.
63

What happened instead were power outages where certain areas
were forced to undergo blackouts to support a freedom movement
in Kashmir. ‘Hum kya chahte, Azadi’. Bear in mind that as the
original stakeholders to this land, Kashmiri Pandits were never
asked if we wanted Azadi. We would just sit there in the dark, with
kerosene lamps, making sure the curtains were covered up with
bedsheets so no light leaked through because we didn’t know what
might happen if ‘They’ came. The bloodthirsty mob on the streets
screaming slogans that clearly told us we were the enemy and were
not wanted in our ancestral home. My mothers’ sweaty palms and
the terror in her voice as she holds my hand and asks me to move
away from the window from a possible stray bullet. The deafening
noise from loudspeakers from hundreds of mosques telling us that
our women and daughters were theirs to be taken and the men were
to be killed. That we were Indian dogs! Footprints in our backyard
where a terrorist had fled after shooting and killing Airforce
service personnel who were waiting for their bus. The bloodied
handprints, a friend of the family described, on her doorstep after
that shooting. The gunfire that killed those men woke me up that
morning; not many people know how loud gunfire is and to a child
it sounded like a motorbike backfiring. The phone calls in the
middle of the night that were placed from our neighbours’ homes
where they said we were next.
The worst were the people who genuinely feigned distress and told
us to leave because our safety was compromised. They were our
friends. When schools were closed because of curfews, our
education suffered and to us as a community that was unheard of.
Phones were not common those days so the world wasn’t as
connected. We didn’t know how our family and friends were
doing, news travelled in whispers, fits and starts. Kashmiri Pandits
were scapegoats who could be picked off at will, anytime.
Suddenly everyone we knew made the decision to leave, it was like
the flood gates had opened. People were packing their lives on the
backs of trucks and leaving for Jammu since that was perceived to
be safe. No one knew what awaited them; but every Kashmiri
Pandit knew it was time to leave.
Kashmiri Pandits turned this life-changing adversity into an

opportunity. We not only survived but flourished against all odds,
despite the trauma that was inflicted on us. As a community, we
64

have built ourselves from the ground up, we have risen like a
phoenix rises from ashes. My generation is truly the last of the
custodians of a culture that survived hundreds of years despite
persecution. I feel that steps need to be taken to preserve our
customs and traditions in exile. There is a chance that if we don’t,
these customs and traditions will vanish forever. We have a few
debts to pay, to our parents for giving us a chance to live and
flourish and to our ancestors for inculcating in us a sense of pride
in education which helped us build our lives again but the biggest
debt we owe is to our children to make sure we leave them a legacy
to hold on to.
I am the last remaining thread between my homeland and the next

generation and it is my duty to make sure I do everything in my
power to re-establish and nurture that lost connection. I owe it to
my children and the future generations who will trace back their
roots to Kashmir. Considering it has been three decades since we
were uprooted, people who really do know what it meant to be a
Kashmiri Pandit are not going to be around forever. The biggest
loss we have suffered after losing our home is losing our language
and unique customs.
A culture cannot be preserved in isolation, in a bubble. Being

immersed in a different culture and living in the West, it is not an
easy task and there is only so much that one can do. My children
heard Kashmiri as their first language, they know where their
mother comes from but they don’t really know what it means
because they haven’t lived it. My children know my (and what’s
rightfully theirs) home was forcibly taken away from me and they
want it back.
Our story is a story of Loss but it is also a story of Resilience. We

are in a position to effect change; we are able to ask questions and
demand answers and restitution. We left as children but now we
need to stand up as the original stakeholders and demand that
justice prevail. We are not your average poster refugees and that
has been an impediment as the world hasn’t realised the injustice
and genocide that took place right under everyone’s noses. It is
time we told our story and the world listened.
65

15. The story of my Exile
Mrs. Anupama Handoo
My childhood in downtown Srinagar was almost the happiest
childhood ever. However, when we moved out of the town house
to the outskirts into our new home, everything seemed to go topsy-
turvy. It was 1985 and we had moved to a predominantly Muslim
neighbourhood. Simple act of going out to fetch groceries or to go
to school, used to fill me with dread and horror. En-route, in my
colony, little kids used to throw mud and stones on me. I often
wondered why these little children would not be in school or doing
homework or chores like me and my other friends. I often
wondered why they were filled with so much hatred for me and
other Hindu kids. The idea of religion, or that fact they stoned me
because they considered me as an infidel was never either
discussed at home or taught to me. Looking back as a community
we were sleepwalking into disaster and no-one realised the
implications. The fact that they had so much hatred in their hearts;
must be because the hatred was passed down by their family and
by their madrassas.
In our new home one day my father got a neighbour to do some
carpentry work. While discussing the job specs, he said to my
father, " Pandit ji, get the house done tastefully. Eventually I will
have to live here." My father laughed him off with a typical
'vasudev katumbakam' (world is one family) analogy. Did he
understand the implications?
One day while coming back from school our school bus got caught
in a crossfire between army and terrorists and there was a bomb
blast in Srinagar town centre. The bus driver abandoned the bus
with young school children and left us in care of CRPF personnel
in Lal Chowk. My father combed the whole city on a motorcycle,
dodging bombs and bullets looking for me. It was traumatic, so
traumatic that I had resigned it to a far corner of my memory -
locked and sealed until he reminded me of this incident.
Trauma, one more time when in the safety of my own home I was
caught in a cross fire between terrorists and CRPF. I was reading a
66

book on my own veranda, when my mum called me inside the
home for breakfast. As soon as I got up a bullet hit the pillar
centimetres above my head, nearly killing me. Had I stood up
slightly earlier, it would have gone through my skull.
In winter of 1989 on the advice of a close Muslim friend, my
family went on BharatDarshan (visiting Indian cities and
pilgrimages). We visited beautiful temples, interesting museums
and national monuments across India. However, when the plane
landed back in Srinagar, the whole town was under curfew.
Terrorists had done a massive rally on the roads brandishing
weapons and openly instigating the police. To maintain law and
order curfew had to be imposed. My parents and I had to walk
good 5kms to home with luggage.
Situation was getting worse. I myself saw so many terrorists trying
to run away and hide in the big fields behind our home, in people's
attics and living rooms. I saw neighbours shielding terrorists and
often getting their daughters/women to sleep with them. Was it
love or fear, I can't tell. Sloganeering from Mosques was followed
by leaflets posted on walls and gates, warning the Hindus to leave.
The home of our ancestors, the home of our culture, heritage and
the fountainhead of our civilization - we were told that we were no
longer required in that land. They wanted to turn the land to
Pakistan, without the Hindu men but with Hindu women. Every
day the news was full of gruesome murders. Young nurse raped
and killed on electric saw, old man and young son tortured with
cigarette butts and shot point blank, men lured to their death by
their own friends and colleagues, shot, drowned, eyes gouged,
privates mutilated, raped, plundered, threatened and humiliated.
When this got too much my mum packed me a small suitcase full
of books and put me on a truck with a relative. I stayed with them
in Faridabad, near Delhi for a few months, worrying day and night
about the safety of my parents. Eventually my mum came to live
with me but my father had to stay back for his job. No, he didn't
live in his own home but as a prisoner in a hotel. A military bus
ferried him and hundreds of Kashmiri Hindus like him to their
offices and back. I spent my teenage years not in the beautiful
67

home with a big garden full of roses, but in a cramped up one room
flat that baked up to 45 degrees in summer. I spent the sleepless
nights worrying if my father was well and alive; and if we would
be able to pay the rent of that water-less, electricity-less tiny room.
I wrote letters to my father, waiting patiently for him to come for a
visit. On his visits he would tell us horror stories of his cramped
living conditions in the hotel, the prison for peace loving Hindus
and how they were everyday risking their lives to travel to work
and stayed exposed to terrorist attack in those publicly accessible
offices. These accounts filled me with fear, but in hindsight also
with courage and resilience. This strength of character of my
parents and lakhs of my community members in face of the most
adverse conditions is what has made me what I am.
People often ask why the original inhabitants of Kashmir were
thrown out on their own homes and plunged into destitution and
misery.
They said that Pakistan sey rishta kya –La ilaha Illaha (With
Pakistan it’s a relationship of Islam). As patriotic Indians whose
culture was the fountainhead of Santan Dharma, this wasn't an
acceptable position for us.
When they said yehan kya chalega-Nizaame Mustafa. (The rule of
Sharia shall prevail). As democratic freedom loving community
that gave women equal and better status and saw the creator in all
His creation - we couldn't have lived under those changed rules as
second class citizens.
When they said ‘we want Pakistan with Hindu women without the
men’. We knew that our options were limited. Many embraced
death to defend their honour and their loved ones. Very few
converted, but a vast majority chose to leave, from the land of their
ancestors to the vast unknown. We took our heritage, dignity and
culture with us and like seeds we planted ourselves all across India
and the globe. Our heart still bleeds for Sanatan Dharma our
beautiful Kashmir and wherever we live; in our hearts and homes
there will be a mini Kashmir wherever we go.
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16. Refugee in my own land
Dr. Urmi Kaul
It was very hard to write about my lost homeland Kashmir,
India and my story. My earliest memories are of being nurtured in
my paradise and cocooned in its warmth.
Until one day, I heard my neighbours whispering to each other
which house they would take over when we Hindus left. And the
other day, when my good friend in school, a Muslim, said she
could no longer be in my company or eat lunch with me as per
Islamist diktat; lest she face their wrath. Or another day, when I
heard our carpenter asking my mum, not to spend too much on
home improvements as we would have to leave and would need the
cash. Or when, our good Muslim friend offered shelter to us kids
after hearing the names of Hindu girls in the mosque who would be
kidnapped and sent across the Pakistani border for trade. Or when,
cinemas and beauty parlours, video parlours and alcohol was
banned and people who defied were threatened and even brutally
killed. Until one day, when no one came to wish us on
Shivratri festival except one Muslim friend who came in disguise
but did not eat as he feared being killed if found out.
Although these changes were happening rapidly, it seemed like a
bad dream and my father tried to pacify us by saying it was just a
law and order problem.
One January night this sequence of bad dreams manifested in form
of endless sloganeering and threatening from the loud speakers of
nearby mosques. These slogans sent shivers in all family members
especially my elderly grandmother. The slogans announced –
If you want to live in Kashmir, you need to convert to Islam.
We want Kashmir without the Hindu men but with Hindu women.
We won Afghanistan now it’s Kashmir’s turn.
Oh kafirs leave our Kashmir.
The rule of law in Kashmir will be Nizam-e-Mustafa – Sharia.
69

We received phone calls from our relatives that they could hear the
same slogans and threatening speeches from their local mosques.
The whole valley was reverberating with the collective cacophony.
My grandmother feared something might happen to women in the
house as she narrated the tales of 1931 when similar mobs had
killed Pandits and burnt and looted their homes and temples, raped
and kidnapped the women. That wasn’t hard to imagine because
Hindus were already being killed and threatened and houses and
temples all across Kashmir were being attacked. My aunt was
narrating the story of her neighbour’s daughter who was kidnapped
on her way to college. The young girl somehow managed to escape
and the whole family left overnight for Jammu after that harrowing
experience. All grown-ups fell quiet; and somehow this pregnant
silence in the background noise of slogans made the unspoken
decision.
It was early morning of 20 January 1990. My mum was got busy
trying to collect the essentials in the early morning around 3 am
and she asked me to wake up my little brothers as quickly as
possible. It was pitch dark and we only carried only one suitcase
full of clothes, another office small suitcase full of our essential
documentation, a few utensils and some food. With heavy hearts,
we left our big house and beautiful garden. Our home surrounded
by the mountains in the valley.
We left for Jammu not knowing where it was as we had never
travelled outside the Kashmir valley. We lived in small rooms with
6 people in one room for many years with hardly any source of
income as my dad was the only bread earner. Weather in Jammu
was harsh with very hot conditions and the temperature often went
up as high as 48 degrees Celsius. This was in huge contrast to the
temperate weather of the valley. It was a living hell for us with no
support from anyone. First season in June 1990, I suffered from
paratyphoid few times for many months and almost died of
dehydration. Later that year, I suffered from sun stroke and that
was another narrow escape. My brother’s epilepsy was getting
worse due to harsh living conditions and most of family was
feeling miserable and had a great sense of loss.
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I lost my grandmother and grandfather with their last wish to die in
Kashmir.
I and my brother managed through severe hardships living in the
most difficult conditions. However we were always encouraged to
pursue our education and build our lives back up. We completed
university education as that was our only way to survive this
genocide.
I have not been to Kashmir since 1990. There are several levels to
this emotional barrier. I fear that someone might kill me or kidnap
me as there are hardly any people of my community left back there.
Fear psychosis is so deeply entrenched in my mind that I suffer
with some sort of post traumatic experience and can’t face going
back and fear that people will see me as a kafir or infidel. When
some people from Kashmir ask me to visit as a visitor, enjoy in
Kashmir as a tourist, I feel very emotional and helpless about how
my community was thrown out ruthlessly, our house, jobs, lands
taken, people killed, maimed and tortured; and they have the gall to
invite me as tourist in my own home.
As my daughter reflects on my life story - What happened was
very bad because the victims have been psychologically scarred for
life. The survivors had to struggle with not having a home anymore
and the experience must have been very traumatic. I cannot
imagine while sitting my own room and enjoying my daily
comforts, what my mum and her family would have experienced.
For me, Kashmir is no different to any other place I have visited
and I feel no emotional connect with it. I do wish though, that my
mum could visit, if that would make her happy.
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17. Exodus – Then and Now
Mrs. Urvashi Koul
When I hear or see the word exodus, especially living in Europe
and knowing how sensitive and respectful they are for any events
that have hurt or murdered humanity, it gives me shivers. It
reminds me of the open wound and the pain that my Kashmiri
Pandit community is still carrying along. It hasn’t healed and it is
difficult to heal 30 years on. What would happen in this age and
generation if someone comes to our home and tells us to pack up,
leave immediately or else we will be killed, murdered or raped.
What would happen if we just get it as a random warning via
telephone or as a troll on social media platform? It will be all over
media and before a legal action would come in place, that person
would be hunted down on social media, news or in person and
probably beaten to death. Why? Because it’s a crime in a free,
democratic country. When I tell my parents, you should forgive
and not let it haunt yourself in present, I get hit by the fact that we
are so intolerable towards even a smallest wrong thing happening
around us now; but they faced and lived through that inhumane
turmoil without any help and support. They left behind everything
they had, running away from their heavenly birth land. Instead, I
try to fill them with hope, that one day it will all come to light and
peace will prevail in the valley to call you all back and rejoice.
I was born in 1990, the month of June. In the year of mass exodus.
My mother was pregnant with me like many other Pandit women
who had no option but to flee, to keep their children and families
safe. I thank Lord that she was safe and I was delivered to her arms
bringing her a little happiness in that grave disturbance. I question
her at times, why wouldn’t you wait and let me be born in Kashmir
too, it was matter of time. I would joke to her; I wouldn’t be half-
Kashmiri half-Jammuri. I would have got a chance to live in such a
beautiful place too. Her eyes fill with anguish and she says -
“When you hear announcements on loudspeakers and see people
with weapons in hands threatening your existence and can only
helplessly watch your community fall down as prey, you don’t wait
to become a prey.” It breaks my heart. Pandits were shot, they were
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killed in day light, they were kidnapped, the women were asked to
stay back to be had by these Jihadis/terrorists. The Islamic
insurgents announcing in Mosques - ‘Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive
(either convert to Islam, leave the land, or die)’. The question that
arises in my mind is - How was all this allowed to happen? When I
compare it to the present time, I have many insecurities in my mind
but have a trust that a treacherous sad event like this will not be
tolerated at any cost.
My parents had a joint family, they lived together, learnt together,
had good and bad times together in Srinagar. After the exodus,
everyone scattered to wherever they could feel safe with their own
immediate families. My family along with first cousins got shelter
at my father’s aunt’s place in Jammu. It was a one room set with
one bathroom and more than 8-10 people adjusting together till
other resources came by. Most of the days my father wouldn’t go
to work, me and my brother would wonder why Papa is at home
and Momma only going to the office. They both never lost
courage. They never let us feel that they sacrificed everything and
more, to gift us happiness and comfort even as migrants. They
were paid meagre salaries and their whole world was shattered.
They had to set brick by brick again to make a new world.
It was in 3rd or 4th class in school, when I started feeling that I was
born here but I don’t think we belong here. I heard kids saying
‘Kashmiri loley’ - a slang for terming Kashmiri Pandits as
cowardly. May be it was a joke but it hurt me later and it still
makes me angry. I would not say people didn’t welcome us. They
embraced us to a large extent but would taunt and jibe us a coward
migrant.
Some of us still living in camps set up for migrants in Jammu.
Many of us have brilliantly taken reins of lives over years and
doing absolutely well off. But does the pain go, of the nights and
days that they were and are migrants in their own country. Of the
fact that their Jannat (heaven) was snatched away from them and
nothing could take them back to their homes again.
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Today is 2019, the month of July. Not even today, the bitter
happening or the memory of 1990 mass exodus has anywhere been
mentioned officially or as a national/state remembrance. Why? It’s
not a resolution surely for anything. But it’s a way to tell future
generations - the difference between humanity and insanity.
Present is a gift, but past is a teacher. Glorification is a different
subject but acknowledgement is a courtesy and a reminder. If there
is a discussion of resolution, I see a hope in the judgement passed
by the government for revoke of Article 370 in the constitution. A
bright hope that the terrorism that still engulfs the land of Kashmir
is handled well. A hope to be fair to all Kashmiris - Pandits,
Muslims and Sikhs to uproot the terrorism and its propagating
factors that ensure the real azaadi (freedom). The freedom to grow,
to live safely and to see our valley reinstated in its beauty and
glory.
74

18. Separated at Exile
Mr. Veerji Wangoo
As refugees poured in from Kashmir into the hot plains of Jammu

and Udhampur.
Summer was at its peak and influx of fresh refugees had still not
halted. It was fortnight of ascending moon in the month of zyeth
and moon was shining as bright as it could on this silent town.
Never ever had it witnessed so much hustle and bustle ever since
war ended in 1971. Most of the people were sleeping on roof tops
and trying to catch as much cool breeze as possible, when a small
one-ton truck shrieked in this small hamlet next to Dhar Road. It
made enough noise to wake up the neighbourhood from their half
sleep.
Suddenly someone screamed aloud "Kakni waatch " [Kakni has

arrived] and the silence of the village was broken with loud
grinding halt of this truck. Some men rushed down the street to
welcome the new refugees and lights were switched on more as a
mark of respect than necessity.
One USHA table fan at the corner was suddenly the most sought
item for guests arriving into the compound. In this chaos a newly
purchased pot fell down and broke. Withstanding the whole
commotion, Rani (the housewife) ran with a glass of cold water
towards the gate. An elderly gentleman Sh. Dina Nath (Deentoth)
came down from truck with a pharen (woollen tunic) wrapped like
a priced possession in his hand. Rani couldn't recognize her uncle
Dina Nath as he hadn’t put his dastaar (turban) on his head. She
hugged this lean structure who was carrying fragrance of scented
Thokur kuth (prayer room). His sacred thread was leaning and yet
clinched to his fair skin like his arteries.
He was turning his head back and forth trying to evade attention; as
if ignorant about the happenings. His sister-in-law Kakni was still
in the truck. Kakni was still out of bounds, as few men were trying
to get her down from the truck. She was unconscious on a big iron
trunk which had wet bed sheets on it.
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Rani realised that her mother Kakni isn’t in the right health. She
was not in her pharen or her beautiful Tarang (hear gear). All her
clothes were in a small plastic bag which Deentoth silently passed
to Rani. Kakni was almost semi-nude, in an unconscious state
wrapped like a fresh makaye watt (corncob) in wet bed
sheets and Deentoth’s Poosc (inner tunic of pharen).
Soon Buluji (Rani’s Husband) announced that Kakni has suffered

heat stroke while on way from Kashmir to Jammu. It was like the
last bad news that folks around wanted to hear. Deentoth was
saddened to arrive at the in-laws of his niece in
such pitiable condition. But there wasn’t any alternative for the old
man. Even worse, Kakni, who was like his sister since she became
a widow at a very young age, was entering her daughter’s home in
such a semi-nude state. Deentoth was in a state of shock, which
was worse than his brother’s death in 1960s. Then, being the elder
of the house, he took control of the situation; today everything was
slipping away from him.
His small wine shop in Srinagar was burnt by the terrorists who
were looking out for him to kill him as well. Silently, he was
praying to almighty that the embarrassment of living in Rani’s
place in such condition was much worse than to have died at hands
of terrorists.
Next morning, Deentoth received his son Bittu Ji, who was
working in J&K bank at Vijay Nagar branch of Jammu. He was
young with lot of energy and he wanted to
take Kakni and Deentoth immediately to his place. Staying with
Rani’s in-laws during such conditions was very
embarrassing. Rani had a big extended family to take care of and
new batches of relatives were arriving day after day fleeing from
Kashmir. Deentoth was in state of shock and couldn’t take a
decision as Kakni had to be admitted in Govt Hospital Udhampur.
Indecisive Deentoth was spending most time in the Govt Hospital
Udhampur. Still embarrassed about the incident in the truck when
his sister-in-law nearly died of heat-stroke and he was asked to
remove her thick winter clothes and place her on ice to save her
life. He felt the pain of being dishonoured in front of whole world,
but was happy that it saved his dear Kakni’s life. Now the
compulsion to be with his son at Vijay Nagar was like sword
76

hanging on his head.
He had often previously visited his son during winter, but could
never stay there for more than a few weeks. Since Kakni was still
in the hospital, leaving her under the care of Rani and her family
would have been a big sin for him. Kakni too was tense as she was
gaining consciousness and was worried that she would have to live
with her daughter’s in-laws or she would have to adjust with Bittu
ji’s family. Her problem was that Biitu ji had married non-
Kashmiri girl from Punjab who might not like her their lifestyle.
As days passed, pressure was mounting on

both Deentoth & Kakni to choose the course of events. Bittu
ji visited a few times but without his wife; which was giving an
indication to Kakni that she wasn’t welcome at Bittu ji’s home.
Silence of Rani was also reminder that all wasn't well on her side
under the continuous pressure of mass influx of relatives into her
house.
After Kakni was restored to some health and rested in small alley
in Rani’s home with a Usha Fan (a privilege given to old & sick);
Deentoth decided to go with his son for few days. Shortly after,
Deentoth fell ill as well at Vijay Nagar. With time and distance,
contact weakened and both oldies were at the mercy of young ones
to make them meet. They could only plan to meet but never
actually could meet.
One night Deentoth planned that he would visit Srinagar again and
then on way halt at Udhampur to see Kakni. He wanted to collect
the legal property documents from Srinagar, which he intended to
keep with Kakni on his return. Deentoth duly wrote to Buluji,
Rani’s husband that he intended to stay with them for a few weeks.
Rani and Kakni were excited about the visit of Deentoth; although
Kakni wasn’t well now and her memory was fast failing her. It was
onset of late autumn of 1990 and she was still talking about
Kangris (personal fire pots) to be checked for winter.
Much before Rani could draft a reply, an obituary turned up in the

local paper, Daily Excelsior, announcing the sad demise of a KP at
Vijay Nagar due to silent Heart Attack. Deentoth’s obituary was
read out loud at Dhar Road residence of Rani, but Kakni couldn't
77

understand much. By Shivratri of 1991, Kakni also breathed her
last.
No-one knew that once separated, Kakni & Deentoth wouldn't

meet ever again in exile. The shock that he had to undress his
mother like sister-in-law to save her, never left Deentoth.
The iron trunk on which Kakni sustained those tumultuous 8
months still was in the attic till recently. It has finally been sold off
as junk and with it, her story will be buried for ever.
Pain of Suffering doesn't last for too long but the remembrance of
that pain is more painful than the pain of suffering itself!
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19. A Ride too far
Mr. Vinod Tikoo
Baramulla, North Kashmir April 1990

The Vale of Kashmir was brimming with voices of dissent and
there was a surge in violence, murder and mayhem triggered by
religious uprising in the state. The trouble in the valley was abetted
primarily by the military leadership of neighbouring Pakistan and
supported by the religious fundamentalist forces who had fallen
prey to the fanciful idea of ‘Azadi’ (freedom). No-body knew what
this Azadi meant, but every street, every corner of the valley was
coloured Green with the slogans of ‘Azadi’.
On a lazy yet restless Sunday afternoon, Sohail Jaan made an

impromptu visit to our house. Sohail uncle was my dad’s close
friend and a work colleague. We used to live in the military
cantonment, but my dad was the only Kashmir Pandit left in the
department and probably among the very few Pandits left in the
entire town of Baramulla. The events of the winter leading up to
India’s home minister Mufti Sayyed’s daughter’s kidnap and the
subsequent release of the dreaded terrorist Masood Azhar in the
barter deal had provided wings to the ‘Azadi’ brigade and they
were riding high under the illusion that freedom was just around
the corner.
There was a mass ethnic extermination of the minority Hindu

community (the Kashmiri Pandits) and other non-Muslims from
the Kashmir Valley during the winter of 1989-90. More than
400,000 people had migrated out of the valley leaving their
centuries old habitat hoping that situation will improve, and they
would be able to return soon. Alas even after 30 years of exodus,
they are still waiting for the circumstances to change for the
community to return to their homeland.
Sohail uncle stepped in and after exchanging pleasantries came into

the living room and sat by his usual place. Mom immediately
brought a Khos (cuppa) of piping hot “Kehwa” (Kashmiri green
tea) for Sohail uncle. Uncle asked me the latest score on the cricket
match playing on the telly and without hearing my reply, got busy
reading through a little pocket book he had at hand. Mom asked me
79

to go to dad’s office, which was just a block away in the campus
from our residence, and let him know that Sohail uncle was home.
After about 20 mins or so, dad came home. Sohail uncle

immediately got up and asked my dad to step out with him as he
wanted to have an important conversation. As they went out for a
stroll, I kept an eye on both of them, as they were walking away
from me. Something in the way Sohail uncle had arrived that day
had made me anxious. After waiting for an hour or so, both of them
walked back home. Dad asked mom to lay the lunch table. Food
was served and we all ate together. There was pin drop silence.
Soon after the meal, Suhail uncle bid-goodbye and also wished us
well.
That evening while I and my brother were in our room studying I
could hear mom and dad talk in slow whispering tone. I tried to
listen in to their conversation. “Suhail aus wanaan, asye paze
nyerun. Dapaan aus chu chukh dohay bazar gachan, che chukh hit-
list’s manz aamut”. (Since you go to the market every day and
most of the town people know that you are a KP and also work in
the defence, your name has been added to the hit-list. You must
leave the valley forthright and quietly.)
I could hear mom panicking, “Wanye kya banye, kot gachaw, asye
ma maaran”. (What will happen now, are they going to kill us?
Where will we go?)
That night mother called me and my brother and told us, there is
danger and if there is any problem anytime; as soon as I tell you, or
if something happens to us; take these two bags and run to the
next-door Intelligence Department campus. They had a more
secure and guarded campus than ours. Both I and my brother could
not fully understand what was going on. We had over the course of
last few months seen a number of processions in town chanting
slogans of ‘Azadi’ and all the loud-speaker noises at night time, but
we still didn’t understand why we had to run, and why would
anyone want to cause harm to us.
The next two days I saw that dad was not in office, but away most
of the time. On 12th April afternoon he came home and told mom
to pack whatever we could, as we were leaving that night for
Jammu. Ram Singh (dad’s very close friend who had a fleet of
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lorries for his milk business) would come at mid-night with his
truck and we had to board quickly and leave before the dawn.
Dad was worried about our staff, some of whom were locals, and if
they got to know about our plans, someone could spread the news
out. So the matter was to be kept hush hush!! All afternoon mom
tried to pack whatever she could, without seeking help from any
staff. Around midnight Ram Singh arrived with his lorry and two
young Sikh gentle-men. We started loading the lorry and within 2
hours or so the house hold worth of goods including our books,
toys, cricket kit and hockey sticks were all loaded up. Dad had a
brand new LML Vespa scooter with JK01 number. He had recently
bought it from the Alson Motors Kashmir in Srinagar and was
always careful of any scratches on his toy. But tonight, the scooter
was loaded with least worrying about any scratches it may get
while loading. I could see the sadness in his eyes.
Mom had stopped talking and was busy finding anything and
everything she could of importance to load. It was around 3 am in
the morning and the Sikh driver chanting ‘Satname Wahe Guru”
started the journey of our life, which has since not ended!
We rushed through the Baramulla Srinagar highway despite the

curfew. The lorry was stopped at a number of places but dad had
his defence ID card and was let through. As we approach Srinagar
around 5:00 am in the morning, the lorry took a detour from the
Bye-pass. We were told there is strict curfew in downtown and so
we should avoid the Batmaloo area. As we headed on to the by-
pass we were stopped by highly armed soldiers at a picket close to
the Srinagar airport. The lorry was searched for. My dad showed
his papers. However, one of the commanders of the picket caught
sight of me and my brother. He made a comment, ‘Militants ko
saath to nahi le ja rahe ho’ (Are you ferrying terrorists?). There
had been a number of cases of young boys being caught with arms
in recent days. We were both searched and then duly allowed to
proceed. Till date I can-not forget that statement and the frisking
on that morning. Sometimes I wonder, what if they had not let us
go. What if we were taken for interrogation? Such was the intensity
and the tension in those times.
After about an hour’s drive as we were passing through the town of

Bijbehara (the native constituency of the then Home Minister of
81

India, Mufti Sayyed), my dad asked the driver, if we could take a
detour to our ancestral village close by to pick our granddad and
the uncle. The driver said that he will not be able to take the risk to
go into the interiors at this stage. After some thought, Dad gave up
the idea, and we sped through, passing by picturesque towns of
Qaimoo all the way to Qazigund and reaching the famous Jawahar
Tunnel in Banihal. By this time it was around mid-day. As we
crossed the Banihal tunnel, the smell, the intensity and the feel of
the air suddenly changed. Everything felt warmer, lighter but at the
same time there was this growing sinking feeling as if something
was left behind forever. Was it a one-way Journey and were we
going to ever return? The feeling at the time was that it was “a ride
too far”.
As we landed in Jammu late night on the Baisakhi day (13th April

is the Sikh festival of harvest) we were greeted by a house full of
relatives and friends in Jammu. This was nevertheless another
world where we now had a new identity besides being a Kashmiri
Pandit (KP), we now acquired the new title of a ‘Migrant’. A
migrant in our own land, but a land too far from our ancestral
abode. The story here after for the days and months to come is
another intriguing story and probably for another time.
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20. Surekha’s Story
Dr. Alka Chandrayaan
I met Surekha for the very first time in Patna. She must have been
in her mid-20s. I had just got married and we were invited for
dinner by a school friend of my husband’s. Surekha was his wife.
She had of course seen me when she attended our wedding. We
settled ourselves in the aura of their warmth and their alluring
hospitality, exchanging pleasantries and making genuine efforts to
know each other. We both knew that in future we would see each
other a lot, considering that our husband seemed to be great pals. I
instantly fell in love with the ease and comfort with which she
looked after us. Jayant and Surekha’s children were quite young at
that time, Viresh a toddler and Vishakha who was just born.
Everything felt very normal and of course it was!
In the next hour or two of our conversation, we started asking more
about each other, and that’s when Surekha told me that she was a
Kashmiri Pandit. She told me how in 1989, when things had started
to change dangerously in Kashmir, and many family members and
friends were being killed by the terrorists, and her family barely
escaped with just couple of suitcases carrying a few clothes. The
frightened family escaped to Delhi, into a one room flat where
Surekha, along with her parents and her brother had to share a
single rented room for about a year. Surekha said that they thought
they were lucky to have escaped alive!
I was shocked, as I had never heard such a story. As an Indian, I
felt ashamed and surprised that this news was completely
whitewashed from a collective knowledge that over half a million
individuals had to flee the dangerous conditions of their homes and
live as refugees in their own country. It indeed bore deep and made
all real, the gasping stories that we heard of mass targeted attacks
and murders. It was a relief that Surekha had lived through that fear
and managed to escape unscathed. And yet her life was so normal,
so beautiful. This pleasant girl, had to flee from her homeland, in
order to save her life. What was inspiring that she and the likes of
her from her community did not pick up a gun to retaliate. They
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started again, built their own lives and built the lives of others.
Surekha found her love in Jayant and together they built a beautiful
life in Patna. A land where Surekha had never been and a place that
she had never known – hundreds of miles from her home.
Surekha was born and brought up in Banamohalla in Srinagar, and
lived there with her brother, her father who was a government
employee and her mother who was a teacher. Life had been smooth
and beautiful until fateful events of 1989-90 when terrorists started
targeting Kashmiri Pandits and other Hindus to create a Muslim
majority state in Kashmir. She recalled the curfew announced in
the valley and her area was particularly sensitive. They were
surrounded by Muslims who once used to be neighbours who they
had shared their lives with, but they were not friendly anymore.
Everything had changed. Her BSc final year exams were postponed
midway with no further undertakings or announcements. Her
family thought that since Surekha’s exams were postponed, they
could use that time to sort things out with her brother in Delhi and
hopefully return back soon to their normal lives.
But that of course never happened. They survived in a small room,
all four of them, for a year, with a folding bed and a corner for
kitchen, all the time with that pinch and hurt and ache in the heart
that they were not able to return to their home in Srinagar. They
were made to feel that they were not wanted in Kashmir any more,
that they do not belong to Kashmir and Kashmir didn’t belong to
them. Surekha was still not a graduate and had to take up a job of a
receptionist to help her family survive. It took her another year or
so and several trips to and fro to Jammu before she could finally
graduate. Life started to inch forward, and they were able to rent
slightly bigger space, however it was tough as she just barely had
her BSc degree in her kitty. She started a diploma in computer
application along with her job. This meant that she left her house at
6 am, went to her classes and then to work, returning home late in
the evening. Meanwhile, her father barely got his basic salary for
the next couple of years or so, and each time he had to go to
Jammu to collect it. One fateful day she met her future husband in
Delhi, and the rest is history.
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If this is not a story of human survival and total grit and
determination, then I do not know what is! It sends a chill down
my spine only to think that what if I was never allowed to go back
to my ancestral house in the village, not allowed to go to Patna or
Bihar or India, how I would feel. How would it feel when your
house of comfort is snatched away and you have to take refuge
outside of your home in cramped conditions and you barely
survive. But survive they did! Whenever I have met Surekha, she
has always had this calm and peaceful expression on her face. She
always greeted us with her charming smile, and anyone we knew
her would say the same about her. I am thankful to social media
that I still am very much in touch with Surekha and of course both
our husbands continue to be close friends.
The world needs to recognise all, each and every one of such
stories. The world also needs to recognise that we never got to hear
the stories of many thousands who were not as lucky as Surekha
and her family were, who never made it out alive. Many did not
leave as they did not want to leave their home!
Most humbly and with deep respect, I want to contribute my little
voice in this narrative. A narrative of grit, determination, positivity
and resilience that needs to be heard louder that the other narratives
coming out of Kashmir. By demonstrating tolerance, tenacity and
perseverance Kashmiri Pandits are the ones who are the real role
models.
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21. Beta’s Story
Anonymous
It’s very emotional moment for me to tell story of my family and
my friends how they suffered at the hands of the terrorists in
Kashmir.
My mother, father and my sister along with her husband and kids
came from Srinagar to Bombay in 1989.
Our hearts got crushed when a telephone call came that Lasse
Koul, Director of Doordarshan, was killed by terrorists in cold
blood in month of February. My sister’s husband was working in
Doordarshan and he was in shock and panic. The terrorists and
some people in government machinery had tried to take control of
the TV centre and radio station earlier in Kashmir. Things were
just like as if Taliban had taken over Kashmir with chaos and fear
due to terrorists.
Bhabi, my mother and father went back to Jammu and could not go
back to Jawaharnagar, Srinagar, as they felt very scared to go back
under such terrorist threats and killings. Sister went to Chanapora
with her husband to her house taking great courage in 1990.
However soon sounds of Allahu Akbar and hum kya chahte azzadi
and yahan kya chalega...nizameh mustafa, all these slogans coming
from mosques loudspeakers and people with guns on roads,
terrified the family. Husband and her sister with extended family
and sister in law and whole family of 12 left in a Jeep with nothing
but clothes on their back. For unknown place in Jammu in middle
of night. On her way to Jammu she went back to Jawaharnagar and
took the trunk full of important documents which included
accounts, paperwork, certificates etc. securing them under a lot of
threat as my elderly parents could not access any of their bank
accounts. Sister and her husband lost their jobs and lived in small
room tenements and went through lot of struggles.
Bhabi, my mother and father lived in one room leaving a big house
in Kashmir 3 storied houses with 2 kanals of land. As she had left
Srinagar for a visit to me in Bombay.
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A close relative from in-laws side who was a teacher, went back to
Srinagar to get her belongings. She was raped and bullets pumped
in her body by terrorists who killed and raped her. It was shocking
for the family. They are still awaiting justice for her after 30 years.
Mum was in shock as she fell ill and could not tolerate the heat,
suffered ill health and mental torture due to isolation and climatic
change. We lost all the property in Kashmir including an ancestral
house in Barbarshah in Srinagar, in front of Ram Mandir
Ramchundrun, next to SP college. All the goods and valuables,
carpets and other valuables and family albums and ancient relics
from our 150-year-old house all looted. My sister’s house was
looted and also burned.
My friend went back to Srinagar, Jawaharnagar in 1990 when her
husband who used to live abroad had died. When she entered her
house she told me a terrifying story and ordeal which still sends
shivers and chills to her and me equally. Her house was occupied
by terrorists, a big three-story house had 60 inmates as if they all
had made it like a living hostel for terrorists.
When she challenged them as she did not know as some of them
looked like educated people, a main person who said he was like a
main terror commander, told her that he was now a good man and
won’t kill her as he had already killed around 20 Kashmiri Hindus.
She was so scared and threatened and ran away in tears from her
own house never to go or claim it again.
She told her story again and again to me and now she is ill with
multiple ailments especially heart attacks she has suffered due to
the utter trauma and shock. She now lives in UK with her son. My
kids are settled in UK and would not be keen to go back to
Kashmir as who would like to live in a terror state again with no
right to life and dignity and like a sitting duck to be killed and
targeted because of being a Kashmiri Hindu.
We will go if we get our rights back.
87

Resilience: 30 Years in Exile (Revised Edition) is a collection
of 21 heart breaking, personal stories of Kashmiri Hindus
who lived through the ordeal of Exodus from the Valley of
Kashmir in 1989-1990. The authors have chosen to relive
and share their stories after 30 years so that Kashmiri
Hindus who are still in Exile are not forgotten. KPCS, UK is
grateful to all the authors for their courage and resilience
and hopes that sharing these stories may prove cathartic
to some.
kpcsevents@gmail.com
www.kpcsuk.org
Facebook/kashmirRevisted
Twitter @kpcsuk
©Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society (KPCS), 2019

Resilience - 30 Years in Exile of Kashmiri Pandits - Book by KPCS 2019

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Revised Edition

“This is a KPCS publication produced as a non profit, community initiative.

©Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society (KPCS), 2019

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Foreword Mrs. Anupama Handoo

1 The Exodus of Kashmiri Mr. S.K. Koul

2 Kashmiri Pandit Exodus - Up Mr. Abhinav Dhar

3 Lost Childhood Dr Viny Kantroo

4 A visit back home: No Fairy Dr. Shivani Dudha

5 A painful memory of a Dr Chandan Kotwal

6 Scars of Childhood Mrs. Meenakshi Kaul

7 Mazhab nahi sikhata, aapas Dr. Natasha Dhar

8 Unhealed wounds Mrs. Anu Dudha

9 Hatai kusi trath Mr. Praveen Sher

10 Tortured. Exiled. Survived. Mrs. Raynoo Mattoo

11 Kicked into Exile Mr. Sandeep Lahori

12 Witness Account Dr. Sanjay Raina

13 Life in Exile Dr. Shafalica Bhan

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15 The story of my Exile Mrs. Anupama Handoo

16 Refugee in my Own Land Dr. Urmi Kaul

17 Exodus – Then and Now Mrs. Urvashi Koul

18 Separated at Exile Mr. Veerji Wangoo

19 A Ride too far Mr. Vinod Tikoo

20 Surekha’s Story Dr. Alka Chandrayaan

21 Beta’s Story Anonymous

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My earliest memory of Kashmir dates to the summer of 1987. Our

The cultural differences were strange for me. I recall, my first

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Things were getting tense at the school as well. My friend Zahid

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On my dad’s return to the valley, we decided to leave for Jammu

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Kidnappings in the family:

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In our locality, most of the Hindu families had already abandoned

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I happened to visit Kashmir in 2005 about fifteen years after the

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I do not have any photographs from my childhood.

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Imagine an independent detached house at the crossroads in a

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My father’s elder brother once was travelling on a bus to return

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Dr. Chandan Kotwal

As I go down memory lane and reflect on the grave tragedy that

I had just completed my MBBS from Government Medical

I had already observed for a few months a steady flow of Kashmiri

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Time flew by fast and I realized that soon my six months of