Former Indian police officer Shiv Murari Sahai has said that the incidents in the Indian propaganda movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ are highly dramatized, highly unrealistic and not an actual representation of facts.
SM Sahai was Inspector General of Police in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir in 2010 when the territory witnessed huge anti-India uprising during which about 150 Kashmiris, mostly youth, were martyred by Indian forces’ personnel including the police.
SM Sahai, who worked in different capacities in the police department in IIOJK, in a conversation during a podcast, said that a lot of Kashmiri Pandits he met told him that the sort of vilification against the Muslim community in the movie had made it tough for them (the Kashmiri Pandits) to return home and then be accepted by the majority community.
Sahai further said that the Kashmiri Pandits told him that the movie is a disservice to the Pandit community and was promoted by someone who never wanted to return to Kashmir.
He said that Kashmiri Pandits do not want to return to their homes in Kashmir. “Most of Pandits, in fact, most from the new generation do not want to return to the valley as they are doing well outside Jammu & Kashmir. There is a thin majority who feel nostalgic and want to return, but the movie has made it tough for them,” he said.
Sahai also admitted that Governor Jagmohan failed to address the crisis that emerged in Kashmir after the eruption of armed struggle in Kashmir in early 90s and that the IIOJK administration could have prevented the situation. He said that a lot of people blame Jagmohan for facilitating the migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley.—KMS
