Kashmiri Muslim’s apology on TV draws Vivek Agnihotri’s attention: ‘send my love…’

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri lauded a Kashmiri Muslim for stressing the need to collectively apologise over the killings and the subsequent exodus of Pandits from the Valley. Sharing a video clip of a local news channel, ‘The Kashmir Files’ director said that “acknowledging the genocide” and apologising for the incident is the “first step” towards the right to justice.

“If someone knows this young man, [please] send my love and thanks to him,” Agnihotri wrote on Twitter.

Javed Beigh, general secretary of People’s Democratic Front (Secular), told ANN News that he was an eyewitness to the Sangrampora massacre and the educated youth of today have to accept the mistakes of the previous generations.

“Dozens of Kashmiri Pandits were killed…I have seen it with my own eyes. Those who were killed were neither stopping anyone’s ‘freedom’ nor killing any Kashmiri Muslim. There were unarmed people. If that’s not a massacre, what is it?” Beigh asked rhetorically.

“Those crimes had been committed and for that, we should join hands and apologise to the Kashmiri Pandits in public, collectively. You don’t need a movie for that,” the Muslim activist added.

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In a series of tweets, Beigh said that it was important for him to speak the “truth about sins of my father’s generation” and highlight the fact that Kashmiri Pandits did not migrate but were violently thrown out.

“I am disgusted at shameless denial of forced Kashmiri Pandit exodus by political class of Kashmir & by wider Kashmiri Muslim civil society. It is therefore even more significant that credible Kashmiri institutions & prominent Muslims come forward & acknowledge our sins of 1990,” he tweeted.

The plight of Kashmiri Pandits came under the spotlight after ‘The Kashmiri Files’ was released earlier this month. The film is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits who had to leave the Valley amid a slew of killings in the early 90s.