Modi claims ‘40 years’ of terrorism in Kashmir

The Kashmiris are intrigued over Prime Minister Modi’s stress twice on 40 years of terrorism ruining the Kashmir valley during his address on Sunday while inaugurating India’s longest allweather road tunnel of 10.89km on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway.

They wonder why he was trying to push back the history of the Kashmir bloodshed by 13 years as the real exodus of the Hindu Pandits from the valley began only in 1990 due to a spurt in the terror attacks and not in 1977 as he implied.

It, however, could not be a slip of tongue as Modi mentioned the ‘40 years’ twice. "Had these 40 years not been ruined by terrorism, today Kashmir would have looked different and a place that would have attracted tourists from the world over," he said.

Some wondered if Modi wants to wipe out 1990 from the history to remove the blot on then Governor Jagmohan, who later became a union minister in the NDA government of Atal Behari Vajpayee and who triggered the Pandits’ exodus from the valley by telling them that he cannot protect their lives in the wake of the guns and grenades booming and encounters, curfews and shutdowns becoming order of the day.

It was also in 1990 that witnessed a series of assassinations, including those of Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohd Farooq, Mahula Masoodi and others.

The Kashmir watchers note that Kashmir did witness many political upheavals, particularly after the death of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on September 8, 1982, but there was no violence until 1990 after the Assembly elections were rigged. They say by no stretch of imagination, Kashmir could be said to have gone through a "period of bloodshed" since 1977 as stressed by the Prime Minister.