NEW DELHI, March 15 : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that selective killing of Advocate Tika Lal Taploo, Doordarshan Director Lassa Kaul and other prominent Kashmiri Pandits in latter half of 1989 and beginning of 1990 had triggered mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley.
In an interview to media at the Parliament House here, Dr Jitendra Singh ridiculed the Congress Party for saying that the migration of Kashmiri Pandits had happened at the behest of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said, those who say so are perhaps not aware of the facts of the history or have forgotten that one of the earliest killings was that of Tika Lal Taploo who happened to be the BJP President of Kashmir Valley unit and was a lawyer by profession. Recalling the chronology of history, he said, on September 14, 1989, Taploo was on his way to High Court when three persons with faces wrapped in dark cloth appeared at the blind turn of the lane and confronted him saying “You are the BJP leader! Come then”, following which they pulled the trigger and pumped all the bullets into the chest of Taploo, who fell down dead in a pool of blood.
The reason why the Congress Party is trying to distort history in the wake of the disclosures made by the film “Kashmir Files”, said Dr Jitendra Singh, is that they are trying hard to bury the truth, which is that the terrorism in Kashmir was the cumulative outcome of the appeasement policy of the Congress Party and the tendency to handle Jammu & Kashmir to suit the political interests of Sheikh Abdullah, who in turn enjoyed the personal patronage of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Citing dates and figures, the Minister said that the 1987 J&K Assembly elections were blatantly rigged by the National Conference-Congress Government which was in power at that time and the Centre remained a mute spectator because there was an accord between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. Mass rigging to ensure victory of the losing National Conference candiates led to a mass uproar and enabled the terrorist organisations, like JKLF, to take command of the situation, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, contrary to what the Congress party says, the truth is that even at the time of exodus, it was the BJP and its ideologically allied organisations, which came to the rescue of displaced Kashmiri Pandits and set up transit camps and shelter homes for them. He vividly recalled that he was himself engaged in voluntary work to assist the Kashmiri Pandits who sought refuge at Gita Bhawan in Jammu and later he along with a group of young medicos went to offer assistance to Kashmiri Pandits lodged in Nagrota Camp when in the summer of 1990, many of them were suffering heat stroke because it was their first exposure to the summer of plains outside Kashmir valley
Dr Jitendra Singh said, Congress, National Conference and their allies have ruled the country and Jammu & Kashmir by bluffing the people with distorted facts and falsehood. Time has come to put the record straight and let the people of India decide who were right and who were wrong, he said.
