Sustained Conspiracy
Even
after attainment
of independence and accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India the fundamentalist
forces in the Kashmir valley refused to accept the principles of secularism
and democratic pluralism and intensified their nefarious designs against
the minority community of Kashmiri Hindus and against the Indian Republic.
Under a macabre programme, 'makatabs' (Religious schools) were established
in every nook and corner of the Kashmir valley with the putative aim of
teaching religious scriptures to youth but with the real intent of indoctrinating
and envenoming these impressionable minds with anti-Hindu and anti-India
hatred. Funds were lavished on these school s openly and clandestinely
by local patrons as well as Muslim countries espousing Islamic fundamentalism
round the world led by Pakistan, and the schools became nurseries for the
growth of fundamentalism and terrorism. A ban imposed by the Government
of Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah on these schools in 1977 was lifted soon after
its imposition under relentless pressure by Jamat-i-Islami and other fundamentalist
organisations.
These pressure groups gradually extended their
tentacles in every sphere of administration, bureaucracy and judiciary
in the State and molded these institutions in a cruel conspiracy against
Kashmiri Pandits resulting in discrimination, alienation, denial and deprivation
of this community over the years. The process of Islamisation and fundamentalism
which started in 1947 took firm roots by 1986 when the fundamentalist/terrorists
enacted a dress rehearsal of the present terrorism on a small scale by
arson, loot and plunder of Kashmiri Pandit property and their temples in
the Anantnag district of the Kashmir valley. No serious effort was made
by the administration to bring the guilty to book. This encouraged them
to cross the border to attend arms training camps in Pakistan over the
next three years during which they brought with them large quantities of
sophisticated arms and ammunition to carry on full scale subversion and
terrorism. The cataclysmic events leading to genocide and mass exodus of
the Kashmiri Pandit community from 1990 onwards is the culmination of this
long process of regimentation, indoctrination, religious frenzy and terrorism.
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