Kashmiri Pandits must get minority status in Kashmir: Sushil Modi

Former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi on Sunday said that Kashmiri Pandits must get the minority status in Kashmir.

Modi said the Central government has filled an affidavit in the Supreme Court that if any state government would like to award minority status to any community in the state, it must be allowed. However, he said, the apex court's decision on the affidavit is still awaited.

Citing the demographic population of northeast, Modi said that over 80 per cent population is Christian in the region and Hindu population is only 10 per cent. "In such cases, how Christians can be called minority there, Hindus are in minority there," said Sushil Modi.

Modi made the remarks while speaking at an event 'The Kashmir Files in Distant Lands and Now Beyond' held by the Global Kashmiri Pandits Diaspora where four International Chapter Heads of the diaspora shared their thoughts on the film -- 'The Kashmir Files' in their countries.

Modi that he will raise this demand of "giving Kashmiri Pandits the minority status in Kashmir and declaring them as victims of genocide".

He said that the government must also come with a White Paper to document all those episodes of atrocities that happened with the Kashmiri Pandits.

"This diaspora should do the first work of documenting all the atrocities to narrate the stories of genocide to the coming generation. Otherwise, no one will know this incident after 15 to 20 years later. However, film director Vivek Agnihotri has already documented much of that for the film," said Modi.

He also said that over a dozen films have been made on Kashmir, but not a single line has been mentioned in those films about the pangs of Kashmiri Pandits. "Instead, they tried to justify the terrorism in Kashmir," he said.

"This land has been the origin of India's cultural conscience," Modi said.

He also said that the credit of reaching the film "The Kashmir Files" to every household of the country goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"For the first time, he mentioned about this film in the BJP Parliamentary meeting and said it has rattled to the entire ecosystem which claims to be the torchbearer of freedom of expression but does not want truth to be told," said Sushil Modi.

--IANS

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