ISIS level Islamic terror was unleashed on Kashmiri Hindus 30 yrs back: Sunanda Vashisht at US human rights hearing

"ISIS level Islamic terror was unleashed on Kashmiri Hindus 30 years back," said columnist Sunanda Vashisht narrating the horrors that forced the Kashmiri pandits to leave their land three decades ago and live as refugees in their own country.

"An Islamist State of Kashmir where other religions are not welcome and tolerance of any other viewpoint is absent is no citadel of Human Rights," she said at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Hearing in the US, reminding all of the time when "when voices blaring from mosques in Kashmir said they wanted Kashmir without Kashmiri Hindu men but with women."

Drawing from the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed by the Pakistani terrorists and before his death had said that his father was a Jew and his mother was a Jew, she said: "My father is Kashmiri Hindu, my mother is a Kashmiri Hindu and I am a Kashmir Hindu."

"Our homes and lives were destroyed by radical Islamic terrorism," she said, adding that she is a member of the minority Hindu community in India and they had witnessed the worst ethnic cleansing in Independent India.

"I speak here to day because I am a survivor. An innocent young woman, a lab assistant in a school was not as lucky as I was. She was abducted, blindfolded, gangraped and cut into two halves on a mechanical saw while still alive. Her name was Girija Tikoo. Her only crime- her faith," narrated Sunanda as she said her voice is choking to remember the brutalities.

She also recalled the incident when a Hindu engineer who had hidden in a rice container in his attic was found out by terrorists because his trusted neighbours betrayed and gave the information to the terrorists and his wife was forced to drink his blood-soaked rice after he was killed.

"I can go on and on," she said comparing the horrors in Kashmir in the early 90s to the one unleashed by the ISIS in recent times.

The Indian government led by Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Aug 5 this year scrapped Articles 370 and 35A which were used to provide special status to Jammu and Kashmir since Independence.

Prior to the abrogation, non-residents of Kashmir were not even allowed to buy immovable properties in the valley.

In a clear message to Pakistan, Vashisht said the losses of lives in the valley since Aug 5 took place due to the terrorists and not the Army.

"Since Aug 5, not one per cent of people was killed by the security forces. All deaths have happened because of the terrorists trained by Pakistan," she said, adding, "We have to assist India in eradicating radical Islamist terror that is when the human rights situation will be possible."

"Terrorism is the ultimate opponent of human rights. Human rights cannot and should not take precedence over human life," she said.

Highlighting the positive impact of the abrogation of Article 370, Vashisht, a Kashmir Hindu who had suffered ethnic cleansing in the valley, said, "Child marriage which was responsible for child trafficking and sex trafficking has been made illegal in Kashmir. Kashmiri women and LGBTQ community in Kashmir have been given the same rights as other Indian citizens."