Islamabad, March 16, 2022 (PPI-OT): The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief spokesman, Muhammad Rafiq Dar, has said that destroying the centuries-old brotherhood between the Muslim majority and the non-Muslim minorities of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir has always been the goal of the Indian government and the people working at its payroll.

Muhammad Rafiq Dar in a statement in Islamabad said that the JKLF, especially its illegally detained Chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik personally, and while performing his organizational duties, have been striving rigorously for the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. He said, the role played by JKLF and Muhammad Yasin Malik in this regard is not only commendable but undeniable too.

He said, “Yasin Malik’s cordial relations with Kashmiri Pandit community and his numerous efforts for their rehabilitation at their ancestral and native land are a part of history that cannot be ignored.” He was reacting to the ongoing debate against the Kashmir freedom movement within a certain section of India under the guise of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.

The statement said that the freedom movement that started in 1988 under the banner of the JKLF was the biggest people’s revolution of 500 years of Kashmir history. “This movement was aimed to achieve independence, sovereignty and unification of the divided State of Jammu Kashmir through attainment of the internationally recognized fundamental right to self-determination’ for all its inhabitants without prejudices of color, caste, creed, region and religion,” it said.

The spokesperson said in order to achieve this basic goal, the people of Kashmir from both sides of the Line of Control along with the top leadership like Yasin Malik are making unprecedented sacrifices that include more than 125,000 were martyred, hundreds and thousands got injured, molestation of women, destruction of billions worth properties, migration of hundreds and thousands of families, and arrests of young, old and juvenile Kashmiris, thousands of them are still languishing in different jails of Indian cities thousands of kilometers away from their homes.

The JKLF spokesman said that the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley was in fact a plan of the Indian rulers and its agencies, which was implemented immediately after the appointment of Jagmohan as the governor of IIOJK in early January 1990. He said, the JKLF and the Kashmiri people have always been depressed and regretful for the unfortunate circumstances and difficulties that have befallen the Kashmiri Pandit community.

He said today RSS-backed handful of inimical elements especially the Pandit elite residing in Delhi and other metropolitan cities of India, who are actually the product of intelligence agencies, are hell bent upon to further erode the already strained relations of the two communities. “On the behest of Indian establishment efforts are being made to strengthen the walls of hatred between Pandits and Muslims, and to widen the gulf between them. These elements are the ones who have in the past conspired against the efforts of JKLF, Kashmiri freedom camp and especially of Muhammad Yasin Malik for the rehabilitation and repatriation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits,” he said.

The JKLF spokesperson said distorting the image of Kashmiri freedom camp at the behest of the Indian government has been a long failed effort of the Indian media. “They have been reporting biasedly on Jammu and Kashmir and unfortunately toeing the government line. Thus committing journalistic dishonesty by denying the Indian people their right to know about the realities,” he said.

Mohammad Rafiq Dar said as per the police records, about 90 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in the year 1990 which is termed by Indian media, and these few elite Pandits as genocide and holocaust. “But when it comes to Kashmiri Muslims, only in the first few months of 1990 the Indian Army and trigger happy Indian forces massacred more than 500 unarmed Kashmiri Muslims during the massacres of Gaw Kadal, Handwara, Kupwara, Sopore, Tengpora bypass and Zakura and most unfortunate part of it is that these hypocrites have remained silent about this. With the increase in massacres the number of killings at the hands of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir has by now risen to more than 125,000 but the world has witnessed that still the slogan of freedom remains alive. Have these ‘The Kashmir Files’ film makers and the Indian media lost every sight of humanity, decency, and did not they feel any shame on their hypocrisy and ignorance?” he asked.

The JKLF spokesman further said the story of Vivek Agnihotri newly directed film “The Kashmir Files”, which was believed to highlight and portray the miseries of displaced Kashmiri Pandits living in the migrant camps, has termed to be one sided, biased and far from the ground realities. The film in no way achieved the said goal instead it created more wedge between the two communities as the story turned to be fabricated and a poisonous propaganda against the Kashmiri Muslims in general and the freedom camp in particular. He said that the Kashmiri people think that the script of the film is based on the false material provided to the director by the Indian intelligence agencies as it is politically motivated suiting the polity of RSS and therefore it has no locus standi.

The spokesman said that the widely known and appreciated political programs launched by JKLF under the leadership of Yasin Malik such as the signature campaign, Safer-i-Azadi, etc. were the programs aimed to achieve the goal of freedom. He said that the Indian political leadership, prominent human rights activists and many important and influential members of Indian civil society, including the international community, appreciated such efforts of the JKLF.

Mohammad Rafiq Dar lauded those Kashmiri Pandit brethren and sisters, and also those humanitarians in Indian civil society who opposed the said film on the grounds that it was filmed for political purposes to achieve

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