How are you, sir?
I'm good! How are you?
- How are you? - I'm good!
- Good. - Please come in.
We were expecting our our second child, which we had planned.
Our first child was three years old.
But we were not sure if there would be any income.
Should we have the second child or not?
Where would we raise him?
In a 10x12 room, where even the toilet is not good.
There are no lights in it. The kitchen is in a shambles. What do we do?
So, for a parent...
We did not let that child come.
And this is killing me. Many time.
I killed a child.
- You aborted it? - We aborted it.
Because you had no place?
Where would I keep the second child?
My wife and I don't talk about it.
It pains me internally. I am a murderer.
I prevented a baby from coming into this world.
A baby that I planned.
Its been a long time but it's still killing me.
I lost the house. I took my children with me in 2007.
We saw the house. It was all burned. It's okay.
That is external. But the scar inside.. it doesn't go.
I understand the pain.
I will have to live with that guilt forever.
A terrorist will never understand this.
When we went to meet Mr. Shubhan Kotwal, we knew that genocide would be discussed.
During the genocide people were shot to death, they died of bombings,
died due to violence, were tortured to death and they continued to die
from the trauma of the genocide.
But a life that hadn't even begun,
yet could become a victim of terrorism...
We could not have imagined.
Mr. Shubhan was feeling such intense guilt, because it had never come out till date.
What could be a bigger punishment for a father
than to live with the feeling of being the killer of one's own child?
And the irony is, that he himself was a victim of genocide.
How many such other lives must have been ended
even before coming into the world?
Where should the genocide of
these innocent lives be registered?
Did you always commit murders on the orders of Ashfaq Majeed Wani
or did you commit murders of your own free will too?
No. I did not kill anyone of my own free will.
I received orders from above. The leaders would send orders.
So, you would kill anyone they ordered you to kill?
Yes.
- No matter who it was? - Anybody.
What if he had ordered you to kill your brother?
I would have killed him.
What if he had ordered you to kill your mother?
I would have killed her.
The ruthless terrorrism that doesn't recognize a mother and a brother
Terrorism that caused such destruction and blood shed in Kashmir.
Terrorism that forced Kashmiri Pandits out of their land and homes
How did this terrorism begin in Kashmir?
From where and why did it happen?
Where did the terrorism first begin for these Kashmiri Pandits,
who fell prey to the genocide?
The aim of the tribal attacks that Pakistan launched
after independence, was to seize Kashmir.
But what strategy did they apply to achieve this?
How they launched the tribal attacks via infiltration?
And during those attacks why did they only target the minorities amongst minorities,
that is the Kashmiri Pandits?
When the second world war ended in 1945,
animosity began between the communists and British allies.
The Soviet Union was communist and China was in the making.
The British thought, both of them are communists,
so, who will protect our interests in this region?
They had no choice but to create Pakistan.
I wish to state this unequivocally,
that Pakistan is an artificially created state that got created
because Jinnah told them that, he would do whatever they would ask him to do.
So, the British have always used Pakistan
to protect their geo-strategic interests over here.
Pakistan was desperate to capture Kashmir
and they launched the tribal attacks.
When the tribals forged ahead they looted everything,
they killed in Baramulla district and other regions of Kashmir.
They robbed the minorities, local Muslims, ladies and Christians.
There was a Missionary school, hospital and nuns in Baramulla.
They robbed everyone, raped them and tormented the common people.
Some Historians claim 35,000 Hindus and Sikhs were burned alive to death.
But, let's be factual. exodus started right in 1947.
People have been leaving.
Kashmiri Pandits or those who are called old Kashmiris.
- In Delhi and Bombay and so on. - Yes, yes.
They started leaving back in 1947 itself.
They have been gradually evacuating since then.
Since then gradually so many people have, you know vacated.
I remember, early morning, I was 4-5 years old in 1947.
We packed. My father said we'll go to mata-mahal.
That's my mother's maternal family, that is in Fateh Kadal.
I remember we were the only Hindu family
and all Hindu families would run to the center of the city.
There was apprehension that the raiders, the tribals that Pakistan had sent,
they will march over everything. They used to kill Hindus.
We had known they had killed in Baramullah, they had killed Christians.
And they had abducted women, they had raped women.
The tribals killed scores of people in one day
in my village Tikkar, Gushi and Kariyama area.
The locals and a few tribals pressurized the Kashmiri Pandits
to convert and become Muslims.
Then they said they would get the Hindu girls married to Mohammadians.
When they heard this the Pandits of Tikkar gathered their daughters
in one house at night, threw lots of grass in it and waited...
If those people would come they would burn down the house
and die fighting themselves. This is what they decided.
They felt if they had to separate Kashmir from India,
they would have to sever the thousands of years old cultural link with it.
The Kashmiri Hindus there were the living expression
of that cultural link.
So, if they wanted to break the historic or civilizational continuity,
they would have to kill the Kashmiri Hindus.
Revoke Article 370 and reinstate the Kashmiri Pandits.
I had seen captivating photographs of the stunning valley of Kashmir.
I had been told tales of the exceptionally amiable nature of the Kashmiri people.
I had listened to poetic verses that portrayed Kashmir as a heavenly abode.
Additionally, political speeches emphasized that Kashmir is an inseparable part of India.
Then I got a chance to go to Kashmir for a shoot.
My car driver there, he used to wear striking red boots.
I once just asked him "Wow, nice boots! Where did you buy them?"
He said, "From abroad."
I thought to myself, he is a taxi-driver
he might has visited Dubai or Bangkok.
I asked him, "Abroad where? Bangkok?
He answered, "No, sir. India."
Kashmir is not an integral part of India...
Kashmir is an independent state...
India is a foreign country...
We should have separate rights...
From where did this ideology came into Kashmir?
Was article 370 the reason behind it?
This Article 370 which was a point of discussion for the whole country for 70 years...
This Article 370 which has been the driving factor behind Kashmir Politics...
This Article 370 which was the reason Kashmiri minorities faced grave injustices...
Scores of eyes got old and many souls died
with the dreams that this Article 370 would be revoked...
How did this Article 370 come into existence in Kashmir?
Jawaharlal Nehru appointed Sheikh Abdullah
as the Head of the Indian delegation of the case in the United Nations.
There the CIA influenced him.
They told him, "We have made so many Sheikhs and Nawabs."
"Look at how many people we have made Sheikhs in the middle east.
We will make you a Sheikh too. Why are you going with India?
This is the reason his core attitude towards India changed
after he returned from the United Nations.
The Constituent Assembly of India was taking place at that time.
Where Article 306A was being debated at the Constitution Assembly...
Article 306A was changed to Article 370 in revision state.
Sheikh Abdullah fought tooth and nail with Jawaharlal Nehru.
He said we merged with you on three conditions. We will not accept this.
You must give us a special guarantee.
Dr. Ambedkar was the Presiding Officer at the Constituent Assembly.
He said, "How is this possible?"
"You accept all kinds of help from India."
"You can build homes in every city in India."
"You can live anywhere in India."
"And yet we would need a permit to go there? It doesn't make sense."
Several Muslim MPs present there opposed it.
They told Jawaharlal Nehru,
"You are laying the foundation of separatism"
But he had put all his might behind Sheikh Abdullah
and Sheikh Abdullah had started exploiting him.
This was one reason why Article 370 came into being.
A confusion is always created
that Article 370 was a part of the accession
but Article 370 was not a precondition in the accession document.
Document that the other 565 states had signed,
the same document Jammu and Kashmir had also signed.
Minority communities like Kashmiri Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians
were particularly impacted by Article 370,
which became a vehicle for discriminating against them,
for unjustly stripping them of their rights.
And the land reform act introduced by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah
was a provision within this,
to unjustly seize the land from Hindus under 'Land to Tiller Act'.
4,50,000 acres of land was appropriated from Hindus.
The Kashmiri Pandits who owned land were destroyed.
They didn't receive a single penny for it.
All the educational institutions,
which received grants from the government, were stopped.
We were 4% to 5% minorities in Kashmir.
There they used to tell us the minority card won't be accepted here.
Why won't it be accepted?
Our children were there, I was there.
When we studied, we saw that the top 70-80 percent students
in the merit list were Kashmiri Hindus.
Hardly 5-10% percent Muslims scored 60 percent marks.
When we went to college we were told, this is a Medical college
or this is an Engineering college
90-95 percent seats will be allotted to Muslims
and only 4-5 percent seats will be allotted to you.
So, when I applied for Medical school I was number fifth
but when the list came out, my name was not there.
So, this was my personal experience.
Why? Because there was favoritism.
To be devil's advocate, Mr. Sheikh was a secularist.
Mr. Sheikh was a secularist?
Would he be friends with Mr. Nehru if he wasn't a secularist?
Hey!
Secularist... my foot!
There is a very famous saying about him...
In Delhi he is a nationalist. In Jammu he is a communist.
And in Kashmir he is a communalist.
People like these are called secularist.
Sheikh Abdullah was a very charismatic leader.
His voice and personality were very commanding,
just like his height.
Whenever I went to Kashmir,
I had heard people say.
That he is the most popular and influential leader of Kashmir.
However, there is no doubt that the separatism in Kashmir began during his time.
And this might have gained great momentum back then but for a bizarre twist.
This twist brought about the end of a turbulent era in Kashmir.
After which there was a stability in Kashmir politics for a few decades.
What was this bizarre twist?
When Sheikh Abdullah became the Prime Minister there in 1949,
his activities were steadily becoming anti-national.
The US Ambassador in India met him in Kashmir and assured him
that he could be independent and that they would back him.
So, from mid-1952 he started talking about liberation.
When Nehru learned about this he realized,
now any conversation will be a waste of time.
So, a decision was taken to arrest him.
The eve on which the decision to arrest Abdullah was taken,
he had gone to Tangmarg. Tangmarg is on the way to Gulmarg.
The terrorists that infiltrate from Pakistan use that very route even today.
Sheikh Abdullah had gone there to meet the Pakistanis.
Actually, the Police wasn't sent. The local Military Commander was ordered
to rush to Gulmarg and arrest Sheikh Abdullah.
Had he made the independence announcement,
the Western countries were willing and ready to give him recognition.
This would've been disastrous. He was arrested at the last moment...
But a lot of damage had been done by the time he went to jail.
Kashmir, India and Kashmiri minorities had already suffered great losses
that haven't been redressed even today.
In almost all the Indian films of the sixties and seventies,
we have seen the beauty of Kashmir.
All of us have those fond memories of Kashmir.
It was during those times that the term
Kashmiriyat came into existence and was being used widely,
especially across the media and political platforms.
Kashmiriyat meant the secular identity of Kashmir,
where all the communities lived in peace.
But separatism and discrimination
between the minorities and majorities had already started in Kashmir.
I wanted to know what did
Kashmiriyat mean for the Kashmiri Pandits?
In Delhi, how casual was it for a boy to go for a movie with his sister?
Very casual.
During the sixties, seventies and eighties we did not go for movies
with our sisters in Kashmir because you knew what kind of barbs
you had to hear on the way from home to the theatre.
And you wouldn't want to be with your sister
because your sister would have to hear or ignore,
not hear but ignore what was said.
Being liberal was one thing
but being a Kashmiri Hindu woman was a different matter.
If you go back as far as 1967...
In 1967, I was in the college and we had a girl, minor Hindu girl.
Her name was Parmeshwari Handoo.
She was working in a supermarket.
One evening she didn't show up. She didn't come back.
Her parents went to file a missing report in the Police station.
The Police station refused
saying that she may have gone with a friend or something.
She was a minor!
And in the meantime we heard that she was abducted,
converted to Islam, given the name Parveen Akhtar
and married off to a Muslim boy.
Parmeshwari was made to sit on a truck and openly forced to read Kalma
just to raise the, you know, emotions of the Kashmiri Pandits,
that we have been able to take your daughter away
and she has been converted.
So, she was basically, paraded around the city as a trophy.
That we have won your daughter.
We were shocked, her parents were shocked, entire community was shocked.
So, thousands of us came out on the streets and protested for 2 weeks.
Nothing happened.
When you saw Kashmir in films, Yash Chopra would make films,
you would see Pashmina shawls, see the shikaras...
What you watched on the TV was real Kashmir,
but there was another side of Kashmir that we were seeing.
We could see the shikaras and pashmina shawls
but we could also see a lot more than that.
I still recall when India and Pakistan played cricket matches
I was very young but I knew I should not go out there
on the day of the India-Pakistan matches.
Because stones would be pelted on our homes that day.
If let's say Gavaskar hits a six...
The more runs India scores the more windows will be broken in our homes.
People talk about stone pelting today, we have seen stone pelting a long ago.
We would be talking very normally...
Two aunties meeting outside would talk casually.
Have you filled up vegetables at home? A match will be played tomorrow.
You must stay indoors.
Think, how fear has been internalized.
Going to be a six!
Sachin! Sachin! Sachin!
- Over long off! - Sachin!
Sachin! Sachin!
- Sachin! Sachin! - Bringing the 200...
- Sachin! Sachin! - Will take it from here.
You bloody Sachin Tendulkar fan!
He'll hit a six against us?
Let's teach him a lesson.
You Indian dog.. Say, long live Pakistan!
You Indian dog..
Say, long live Pakistan!
Say it! Say it! Say it!
Say, long live Pakistan!
Abdul!
Through the continuos efforts that Pakistan had been making of separating Kashmir from India,
the most fatal period was of 1977 and 1978.
India and Pakistan go to war in 1971.
Pakistan suffers humiliating defeat.
And Bangladesh comes into existence.
Indira Gandhi emerges as a strong leader.
Then in 1978, Zia Ul Haq becomes the President of Pakistan.
In 1979 Russia invades Afghanistan.
America uses Pakistan to counter Russia.
Pakistan becomes a front-line state for America
And unlimited quantities of arms and ammunition, dollars
are sent to Pakistan.
The terrorism which reached its peak in Kashmir in the 1990,
the seeds of that terrorism were sown in Pakistan during this time.
And after this, what transpired in
Kashmir politics that further inflamed the potentially volatile situation?
Zia Ul Haq came from the generation
that had suffered defeat at the hands of India in 1971.
He was a young Officer then. A Captain or a Lieutenant.
This always pinched him.
It was always everyone's ideology there to capture Kashmir one way or another.
All of them took risks for this purpose.
Ayub Khan took a risk, Musharraf took a risk, Zia Ul Haq also risked it.
However, Zia Ul Haq was more intelligent.
He did not go for direct confrontation. He used insurgency.
Next time we realized things were changing big time
was when Zia Ul Haq came to power in Pakistan.
And suddenly slogans were visible everywhere in Srinagar, Kashmir...
"It is surprising that you don't have time for Namaaz prayers."
During the late seventies and early eighties,
a large number of people were summoned from Aligarh,
without revoking Article 370 to make them Imams of the mosques.
And to open up sweetmeat shops.
Today problems are cited
because Article 370 has been revoked.
But back then in the seventies and eighties very easily, the migration
of Aligarh Muslims to Kashmir had started.
Sheikh Muhammed Abdullah passes away in 1982, and his son Farooq Abdullah,
who has no experience whatsoever in politics
automatically inherits this government.
Farooq Abdullah received support from Indira Gandhi,
because Farooq Abdullah was Rajiv Gandhi's friend.
Sheikh Abdullah was a leader who had a grasp on the people.
Dr. Farooq Abdullah had no grasp on the people
So he emerged as an entirely non serious politician.
So a political vacuum was created, which made things very easy
for the anti-India forces, and the Jamat-e-Islami forces.
Elections were impending in Kashmir in 1987.
These elections are considered to be the most significant in the history of Kashmir.
Many secrets are hidden in the backdrop of this time in Kashmir.
Looking at the newspapers of that time, one can believe that the cause of the terrorism in Kashmir,
was the 1987 election.
But is that the whole truth?
It is believed that the candidates of the 1987 elections
have had a connection with the terrorism in Kashmir.
Zia Ul Haq's plans of insurgency had led to
radical organizations such as Jamat-e-Islami reigning supreme amongst the public.
What was the outcome of this?
Was this in any way connected to Muslim United Front,
a political party which was formed just before the 1987 election?
What was the mystery of this political party MUF?
And what happened during the 1987 elections,
which is said to be the real cause of Kashmir genocide?
And who was it who held the reigns of this terrorism ?
There were two things that Pakistan wanted.
The first was terrorism on land and to declare Kashmir
an Independent Islamic Republic on the strength of this terror.
Secondly, they needed a party on a political level,
which would serve as a political front for background terror activities.
Pakistan planned the formation of MUF.
Farooq Abdullah's good friend Rajiv Gandhi was in power in Delhi
and Rajiv Gandhi paid great heed to Farooq Abdullah.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed wanted to become the Chief Minister of Kashmir
but he failed to garner support.
He didn't have the support of his High Command in Delhi.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was with the Congress party
but he was in an ongoing ego battle and political battle
against Farooq Abdullah.
When Ayodhya controversy happened in 1986,
and the gates were opened up in Ayodhya by order of the Court...
In 1986 itself, riots took place in Anantnag.
Anantnag was Mufti Mohammed Sayeed family's citadel.
However, when the elections took place,
the political analysts said MUF could very possibly win
and MUF could reign supreme over National Conference and Congress.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was campaigning for Congress.
He was talking to the public in Kashmiri language and telling them,
"You know who you have to vote for."
He did not name either the Congress or the MUF.
He was campaigning for Congress but he removed a pen from his pocket
and signaled to the people in this manner.
And pen was MUF's election symbol !
To ensure his victory in the elections, and to ensure that the government does not
dismiss him, Farooq Abdulla allied with Rajiv Gandhi,
and he rigged the elections.
Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah, who was Farooq Abdullah's uncle
was the candidate in the Amira Kadal constituency.
Mohammed Yousuf Shah, Amir of Jammat-e-Islami was his opponent.
When the counting took place after the elections the NC candidate lost
and MUF candidate Muhammad Yousuf Shah won the elections.
Everyone knew this. But when the DC made the announcement,
he declared the NC candidate as winner.
This caused a huge uproar.
Muhammad Yousuf Shah's accounting agents were seated there.
Amongst them were five people. They were called HAJY.
Hamid, Ashfaque Majeed, Javed Mir and Y Yasin Malik.
Yasin Malik is a name we hear even today,
How did he become an instrument of destruction for Kashmir and the Kashmiri Pandits?
What was the mystery behind Yasin Malik's dreaded terrorism
that brought a powerful nation like India to its knees?