Columnist Sunanda Vashisht has recalled the nightmares suffered by Kashmiri Hindus in the year 1990 as she attached evidence at a US Congressional hearing on human rights.
“I am a member of the minority Hindu community from Kashmir, victim of the worst ethnic cleansing witnessed in independent India,” Vashisht said. “I speak here today because I am a survivor.”
One of them was known to be a young engineer identified as BK Ganjoo, who she said hid in a rice metal box when terrorists came searching for him.
“He would have been alive today had his location not been disclosed to the terrorists by his own neighbours….The terrorists shot him through the container and forced his wife to eat the blood-soaked rice,” Sunanda Vashisht said.
Vashisht added that at the hearing which was 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 Indian citizens. If something as serious as a woman’s right to own property and granting of LGBTQ rights…to choose…amongst many others, has been accomplished through abrogation of Article 370, then it is safe to assume that restoration of Internet in few remaining districts of Kashmir is not too far away,” she added in a statement.
“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, and the human rights of my community.”