PIL in SC seeks SIT to identify those responsible for genocide of Hindus, Sikhs in J-K

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 27

A PIL in the Supreme Court has demanded setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to identify those responsible for the alleged genocide of Hindus and Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir during 1989-2003.

Filed ‘We the Citizens’, the PIL has sought a census of Hindus and Sikhs victims or survivors of “genocide” in Jammu and Kashmir residing in various parts of India t identify and rehabilitate them.

The PIL demanded that all sale of properties after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs in January 1990 -- whether religious, residential, agricultural, commercial, institutional, educational or any other immovable property should be declared as null and void.

This is the second petition on the issue filed in the top court in the last one week. Earlier, a Kashmiri Pandits’ organisation had moved the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored probe by CBI/NIA or a court-appointed agency into the alleged mass murders and genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir during 1989-90, saying the J-K Police miserably failed to make any progress in hundreds of FIRs pending with them.

In a curative petition in the top court, Roots in Kashmir questioned the court’s 2017 order dismissing a petition for a probe into alleged ethnic clinging of Kashmiri Pandits. Curative petitions are generally not taken up in open court and are heard by circulation among the members of the Bench.

“The instances referred in the petition pertain to the year 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then. No fruitful purpose would emerge, as the evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture,” the top court had said in its April 27, 2017 order.

The curative petition sought a direction to complete the trial and prosecution of Yasin Malik for alleged gruesome murder of four officers of Indian Air Force on January 25, 1990. The case is currently pending before a CBI court. It also sought prosecution of Farooq Ahmed Daar alias Bitta Karate, Javed Nalka and others for hundreds of FIRs of murders of Kashmiri Pandits during 1989-90, 1997 and 1998, lying un-investigated by J&K Police even after expiry of 26 years.

The petition demanded transfer of all such FIRs pertaining to murders of Kashmiri Pandits, from J&K to some other state, preferably Delhi, so that the witnesses, reluctant to approach police or courts in view of their safety concerns, can freely and fearlessly depose before probe agencies and courts.

The latest PIL by NGO ‘We the Citizens’ said it has done research by going through books, articles, and memoirs of migrants from Kashmir, including ‘My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir’ written by former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Jagmohan and ‘Our Moon Has Blood Clots’ by Rahul Pandita which give first-hand account of the genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs in 1990.

“The failure of the then government and police administration and finally complete breakdown of constitutional machinery have been explained in those books. The then government and state machinery did not act at all to protect the life and limb of Hindus and Sikhs and allowed anti-nationals and terrorists, anti-social elements to take control of whole of Kashmir. As a result the Hindu and Sikhs citizens lost faith in the government and were forced to migrate to other parts of India,” the PIL read.

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