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Hindus plan to flee Kashmir
25/03/2003 16:39 - (SA)
Nadi Marg, India - Kashmiri Hindus, stunned by the massacre of 24 of their community members, said on Tuesday they wanted to leave the restive region, and urged India to make way for their evacuation.
"I will no longer stay in Kashmir," said Ramesh Kumar, one of the survivors of the massacre which took place on Sunday in this village in Indian-administered Kashmir.
"If I stay, life will not be same again for me and my family," said Chandji, a day after he cremated his father and sister who were among the 24 men, women and children gunned down by unidentified men.
On Tuesday, India's Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani visited the village to try and console the bereaved families.
Advani was confronted by hundreds of Hindus on his arrival who begged the leader to shift them from the Muslim-majority region, wracked by 13 years of Islamic insurgency, to a safer area.
"For god's sake, please make arrangement for our safe migration from Kashmir," an aged Hindu begged Advani.
"It will be a great gesture," he added, as others folded their hands and pleaded to be moved to Jammu, the Hindu-majority winter capital of Indian Kashmir.
"We want to live without fear," another unnamed Hindu shouted, as his Muslim neighbours watched silently.
Bullet-riddled corpses
Advani was visibly moved by the pleading of the group of Hindus who arrived here to search for their relatives among the pile of bullet-riddled corpses.
"We have not done justice with Kashmiri Hindus. We should protect them at all costs," Advani said.
"We will make arrangements for you to live elsewhere, but that's what the enemy wants. Personally I would be reluctant to do it," he added.
Advani said there were some 8 000 to 10 000 Hindus in Kashmir, while more than 200 000 had left since the start of the anti-Indian Muslim rebellion in 1989.
"Those who have carried out the massacre want the remaining Hindus to leave the Kashmir valley," Advani said, amid fears that the massacre had shattered Indian efforts to resettle the displaced Kashmiri Hindus.
Advani, however, said many Hindus were keen to return to Kashmir, where separatist violence has claimed more than 37 500 lives.
But the Hindus gathered here said they were now determined.
"It will be tragic to leave Kashmir but it is better to live without shelter than to live under constant fear," said ," said Ajay Koul. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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