In a video that has now gone viral on social media, a Kashmiri Hindu boy recounted how the opening scene of ‘The Kashmir Files’ resembled an incident that he experienced as a child in the Valley.
“You might have seen the movie opens with a kid right? A kid is caught by a mob and hit. That was me,” he exclaimed. The opening scene of the movie showed child actor ‘Prithviraj Sarnaik’ (who played the character of ‘Shiv’) being assaulted by Islamists for cheering for India’s victory against Pakistan.
“That was you? oh my God,” a woman in the crowd inquired. “I was 10 years old at that time,” the boy recounted.
An incident this man from NJ experienced as a boy was shown in the movie #TheKashmirFiles #KashmirFiles #KashmirFilesTruth #KashmiriPandit pic.twitter.com/XC567g2iyl
— 👩🏻🏫 (@asha_ny) March 18, 2022
He emphasised, “They (The movie makers) kind of stiched different stories and made a story because it is not possible to make a story on each and every (child) right?”
“And I remember that it was a match between Pakistan and India. And Pakistan had won it. I was going through the streets and the mob surrounded me. There was some money in my pocket. They took the money to buy crackers,” the boy narrated while choking under the weight of his childhood trauma.
A woman, who was seen consoling the boy, remarked, “It is not possible to show the gruesomeness that has occurred. This was probably the mildest way of depicting what has happened to the Kashmiri Pandits. The actual stories are much more gruesome. “
‘The Kashmir Files’ movie narrates the 1990 genocide of Kashmiri Pandits
The Kashmir Files’ is inspired by the true stories of Kashmiri Pandits. It takes viewers back to 1989, when conflict erupted in Kashmir due to rising Islamic Jihad, forcing the great majority of Hindus to flee the valley.
According to estimates, roughly 100,000 of the valley’s total 140,000 Kashmiri Pandit inhabitants migrated between February and March 1990. More of them fled in the years that followed until just about 3,000 families remained in the valley by 2011.
The movie based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide was released in India on March 11 and is open to watch in theatres.
