Washington, Nov 15, TEN Network | Columnist Sunanda Vashisht on Thursday recalled the horrors suffered by Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 as she testified at a US Congressional hearing on human rights.
“I am a member of the minority Hindu community from the Kashmir valley in India, victim of the worst ethnic cleansing witnessed in independent India,” Vashisht said. “I speak here today because I survived.”
Others weren’t so lucky, she said, and proceeded to describe in heart-rending detail the fate that had befallen them.
One of them was a young man, an engineer named BK Ganjoo, who she said hid in a rice container in his attic when terrorists came for him.
“The terrorists left but as they were leaving his hiding location was disclosed by the neighbours. The terrorists came back and shot him in the container and forced his wife to eat the blood-soaked rice of her husband,” Sunanda Vashisht said.
‘SCRAPPING OF ARTICLE 370 A RESTORATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS’
Vashisht said at the hearing, organised by the Tom Lantos HR Commission in Washington, that the recent abrogation of Article 370 was “a restoration of human rights”.
“Today I am delighted that Kashmiris have the same rights as the Indian citizens. If something as serious as a woman’s right to own property and granting of LGBTQ rights, amongst many others, has been accomplished through abrogation of article 370, then it is safe to assume that restoration of Internet and phone service in few remaining districts of Kashmir is not too far away,” she said.
“I am a proud daughter of Kashmir,” she added. “Terrorism has uprooted me and snatched my home from me. I hope my human rights are restored too someday.” (India Today)
