In yet another attempt to whitewash the atrocities against Kashmiri Pandits, CJ Werleman, radical Islamist apologist and ‘independent’ journalist, re-shared his 2019 article in a tweet on November 27. In the tweet, he denied the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley and said, “There was no ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir! Even the Indian govt acknowledges that, saying only a sum total of 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed during a 15 year period spanning 1989 to 2004. Compared with 100,000 Muslims killed in this same time.”
Werleman conveniently ignored the fact that there were announcements from the mosques threatening Hindus (Kashmiri Pandits) to leave the valley. As a result, thousands of Hindus left the valley overnight, fearing for their lives, and those who could not leave were brutally murdered by the Islamists. Werleman was quoting a tweet by Asha Jadeja Motwani, who shared the information of the upcoming film by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri titled “The Kashmir Files”. In her tweet, Asha had written, “Decades after the invasion of Maharaja Hari Singh’s Kashmir on Oct 1, 1947, by Pakistan, has someone spoken about the “ethnic cleansing” of Hindus in Kashmir.”
Decades after the invasion of Maharaja Hari Singh’s Kashmir on Oct 1, 1947, by Pakistan, has someone spoken about the “ethnic cleansing” of Hindus in Kashmir. pic.twitter.com/y4LD2a9Gon
— Asha Jadeja Motwani 🇮🇳🇺🇸 (@ashajadeja325) November 24, 2021
What does Werleman’s article claim?
Published in 2019 on estranewsfeed.com titled “The Myth of Hindu Genocide in Kashmir Continues to Stalk Muslims”, Werleman had claimed in his article that Hindu genocide never happened in Kashmir. He pushed the propaganda against the Indian Army, stating, “Indian military has raped, tortured, murdered, and forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of Muslims in Kashmir in the past three decades alone.”
Werleman further claimed that RSS-BJP workers spread “fake” information about the Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus and genocide on social media platforms. He added, “In short, Kashmir’s Muslims did not carry out genocide against the Hindu minority. All in all, a sum total of 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed during a 15 year period spanning 1989 to 2004, according to an investigation carried out by the Indian government’s Ministry of Home Affairs in 2005.” According to him, the killing of 219 Hindus on record was a negligible number and should not be a reason to target Islamists who carried out the attack on Hindus in the valley.
He alleged that those Kashmiri Pandits who were killed in the valley were ‘spies’ working for the Indian Army. He said, “Violence against Kashmiri Pandits in 1989–90 took place within the context of a sustained rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir, with Islamic militants selectively assassinating spies and Indian military collaborators,” and that led to the fear in Kashmiri Hindus.
The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits
On January 19, 1990, mosques in Kashmir issued a warning to Kashmiri Pandits while terming them as Kafirs. They had three options, leave Kashmir, convert to Islam or be killed. It has been over 30 years, but the pain, agony and tears of tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits still echo the valley. As per records, around 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed at the hands of Islamists. While some studies suggest around 100,000 Kashmiri Pandits left the valley during the 1990s, the number may be as high as 300,000, according to a survey by the Hindu American Foundation.
During that period, not only Hindus were forced out of Kashmir, but temples were destroyed, houses were burnt to ruins, and millions became homeless. The repeated whitewashing of the atrocities against the Hindus by the likes of Werleman has created a perception that Muslims and not Hindus were the victims. In reality, even after the abrogation of Article 370 and continuous efforts of the Government of India to resettle the Kashmiri Pandits in the valley, only a handful of families have been relocated.
Since October 2021, several Hindus have been murdered by the Islamists in the valley that implanted fear among the Hindus that the valley was going back to the days of the 1990s. As per reports, in the first week of October itself, around 1,400 Hindus left the valley after the murders of Hindus by terrorists.
Welerman – A habitual fake-news peddler
So-called journalist CJ Welerman has repeatedly been attacking the Government of India and spreading misinformation and fake news on social media platforms. Recently, he called for boycotting Indian products allegedly to “save Indian Muslims”. In a tweet, he wrote, “Save Muslims in India and Kashmir: Boycott Indian products.”
Earlier on October 21, he had tweeted a video of Pramod Muthalik, the chief of the Hindu activist group Shri Rama Sene, to allege that he called for violence against Muslims and the demolition of a mosque in Karnataka. “Leader of Hindutva group Sri Ram Sena calls for violence against Muslims and the demolition of Jumma Mosque in Karnataka,” he had said in the tweet.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova had echoed his voice and spread the fake news. OpIndia had earlier reported how left-liberal news websites had falsely claimed that Pramod Muthalik called for a “Babri-like” demolition of the Jamia Masjid in Gadag in Karnataka. However, in reality, he had made no such claims.
Werleman is a habitual fake news peddler who spends time spewing anti-India venom while inventing incidents out of thin air. Earlier in September, he had called for ‘regime decapitation‘ strikes against India.
