There are 808 Kashmiri Pandit families who did not leave the Valley. They are living peacefully with other communities in Kashmir.
Chuni Lal said that communal harmony in Kashmir is unmatchable anywhere across the world. “We all (Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs) have the same culture. We participate in each other’s festivals. I have more Muslim friends than Hindus,” this retired government employee said. He is not amused at some people trying to give a communal colour to what happened in 1990. “Vivek Agnihotri has made a movie on the sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits. He should have also included what non-migrant Pandits went through and have been ignored by successive governments over the years,” he says.
Agnihotri’s movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ is focusing on the exodus of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits back in 1989 when the insurgency erupted in the Valley. The movie has been largely criticized in Kashmir and across the country by people who believe that it has shown only half-truths and is creating an atmosphere of hate against Muslims.
Countering a narrative created by some people that Muslims in Kashmir have illegally occupied houses of Pandits, Chuni Lal said, “We originally hail from Sumbal Sonawari in North Kashmir. We have a house and also some land. But nobody has occupied that property.”
Sunny Kaul is another Pandit who did not leave Kashmir. He has two children working outside the state but he and his wife have no urge to move. “In 2020 when one of our relatives passed away, it were local Muslims who performed his last rites. Last year when I had Covid, it was my Muslim friend’s son who took me to the hospital in his car,” he said.
Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) led by Sanjay Tickoo recently tweeted, “Every Kashmiri Muslim is not terrorist, every Kashmiri Pandit is not communal. We both respect, love and share our pain which every Kashmiri has gone through last 32 years. TKF makes resident Kashmiri Pandits unsafe.”