The
Fourth Exodus (1753)
Following
close on the heels of Faqierullah's tyrannical and fanatic misrule came
his diabolical son Fazal Kanth the Chief Minister whose subedar beheaded
Kailash Dhar in broad day light in the open court of the Shia-Muslim Governor
Amir Khan Jawansher and gave a contemptuous watery burial in the river Jhelum. Then he went amuck killing and plundering the KPs.This episode
so alarmed and panicked the KPs that they felt helpless and desperate.
The whole environment became so hostile to them that they fled to Poonch
and Kabul for safety and shelter.
Physical torture
in the mast ruthless fashion, mental agony, emotional, spiritual anguish
fleecing punitive taxes, indignity heaped on the male members of the hapless
community. Unchecked harassment and shameless molestation of women folk
and more than most the commendable remarkable and unbeaten will to preserve
the faith that had been good enough for their forefathers could perhaps
have been the reasons that compelled this exquisitely cultured and literate,
non-violent and highly tolerant community with rich and radiant heritage
to flee the land of their genesis, of their Saints and Sages, of their
mature ancestors four times by the time the sixty seven year black and
cursed rule of the Afghan butchers in Kashmir expired. The capture of Kashmir
by Sikhs marked the deliverance of the KPs from the barbarous Afghan governors.
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