Stamp goof-up: Pandits slam Pakistan for spreading lies

Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, October 2

The latest goof-up by Pakistan on postal stamps depicting protesting Kashmiri Pandits has the community aghast and fuming.

The picture in one of the stamps issued by Pakistan recently showed a demonstration organised by the Pandit community in New Delhi on January 19, 2014, to mark the ‘exodus’ when 3.5 lakh Hindus left the Valley in 1989-90. Incidentally, the demonstration was organised against Pakistan and the separatists in Kashmir.

Some of the activists visible in the protest picture were outraged when the stamp was uploaded by a Pakistan journalist on Twitter. The protest had been organized by Pandits’ organisation Roots in Kashmir (RIK).

“We first thought it was fake, but when we checked the Pakistan website on postage stamps, we were shocked. Pakistan was depicting our demonstration as an ‘anti-India protest’ to present before the world a false picture of Kashmir. It is like rubbing salt into our wounds”, said Vinod Bhan while talking to The Tribune from Faridabad, Haryana. Bhan was part of the RIK team visible in the picture.

“A shameful reminder of how lies are being manufactured and fake information is being used to mislead world opinion about the real situation in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Akshay Amberdar, an RIK activist who lives in New Delhi.