CIHS – Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies

Date/Time:

Kashmiri Hindus and Atrocity Crimes: A Legal Brief on Persecution and Forced Displacement

The brief argues that the removal of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley must be read through the law of atrocity crimes, not through the language of “fear,” “sporadic violence,” or “voluntary migration.” Where civilians flee under targeted killings, sexual violence, intimidation, and the collapse of any real safety, the law treats the outcome as coerced displacement. The report applies the tribunal-tested standard of “genuine choice”: if staying is realistically impossible, leaving is not consent. The report aligns the record of atrocities with a structured legal framework. It traces a core objective consistent with ethnic cleansing: the creation of an ethnically homogeneous space through terror-driven removal. It then shows how the victim group was selected on inherited identity, not conduct, Kashmiri Hindus marked as a community. It documents the methods used to compel flight and prevent return: targeted assassinations and massacres, rape and sexual violence as terror, threats and social intimidation, property stripping and cultural erasure. Emblematic cases are examined to demonstrate how individual crimes served a collective outcome, including the assassination of advocate Tika Lal Taploo and the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarla Bhat. Legally, the brief explains that “ethnic cleansing” is not a standalone treaty offence, yet the conduct it describes is fully prosecutable through established categories: persecution, murder, rape, and forcible transfer as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes within a conflict setting. It situates these findings within Indian constitutional guarantees, equality, life, movement, and religious freedom, alongside public international law standards on forced displacement and persecution. The report also sets out a responsibility chain. It argues that the perpetrator ecosystem was sustained by Pakistan-backed jihad infrastructure and local terrorist networks, and that the enabling environment was reinforced by ideological mobilisation and “soft separatist” cover that normalised denial and insulated perpetrators. Groups discussed include JKLF, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-linked networks, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, and separatist fronts operating as political shields, most prominently the Hurriyat Conference. The brief outlines the legal rationale for examining cross-border financing, training, infiltration, and sanctuary under doctrines of state responsibility and aiding-and-assisting.

Read More

Explainer: Jammu and Kashmir Sankalp Diwas

In aftermath of India’s independence and subsequent Partition of earstwhile British occupied India, Princely States were vested with the prerogative to decide their accession to either the dominion of India or Pakistan, contingent upon geographical coherence as per Indian Independence Act of 1947. This foundational principle was disrupted on the night of October 22/23, 1947, when Pakistani army along with its rallied tribal raiders initiated a forceful assault on the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir. Subsequently, Maharaja Hari Singh formally acceded to the dominion of India on October 26, 1947, prompting deployment of the Indian army. Read More….

Read More

Supreme Court’s Verdict on the Amendment of Article 370 is Historic: PM

Narendra Modi The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi said that the Supreme Court’s verdict on the abrogation of Article 370 is historic and constitutionally upholds the decision taken by the Parliament of India on 5th August 2019. Shri Modi also said that the Court, in its profound wisdom, has fortified the very essence of unity that we, as Indians, hold dear and cherish above all else. The Prime Minister posted on X; “Today’s Supreme Court verdict on the abrogation of Article 370 is historic and constitutionally upholds the decision taken by the Parliament of India on 5th August 2019; it is a resounding declaration of hope, progress and unity for our sisters and brothers in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The Court, in its profound wisdom, has fortified the very essence of unity that we, as Indians, hold dear and cherish above all else. I want to assure the resilient people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh that our commitment to fulfilling your dreams remains unwavering. We are determined to ensure that the fruits of progress not only reach you but also extend their benefits to the most vulnerable and marginalised sections of our society who suffered due to Article 370. The verdict today is not just a legal judgment; it is a beacon of hope, a promise of a brighter future and a testament to our collective resolve to build a stronger, more united India. #NayaJammuKashmir” (Author is Prime Minister of India)

Read More

Brief: Seven Exoduses and the Ethnic Cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus

In the late 1980s and early 90s, the Kashmir Valley was engulfed by terrorism aided and funded in the name of ‘Islam’ by Pakistan as part of its neferious K2 (Kashmir and Khalistan) policy by initiating ‘Operation Tupac’, which aspired to foster successionist movements in India. As a result, several radical Islamist factions, Pakistan-based terrorist organisations and their local Kashmiri sympathisers joined hands to nurture an Islamist separatist movement in Kashmir that would be both religious and political depending on convenience and timing. The campaign was hinged on its brutal aggression against Kashmir’s minority Kashmiri Hindus, who were considered infidels and labelled as Indian agents by Pakistan backed Islamists, terrorists and their sympathisers in the valley of Kashmir. In the years following, Pakistan-sponsored terrorists and their local collaborators organised a terror campaign of targeted killings, rape, threats, inflicted systematic damage and destruction of Hindu homes and places of worship. Faced with imminent threat and persecution by torture, crimes against humanity and systematic elimination of the minority community in Kashmir. Kashmiri Hindus were forced to flee their native homeland in the seventh mass exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley of Kashmir.

Read More

Kashmiri Community in Fear and Insecurity

Decades ago, when terrorism engulfed the valley, Kashmiri Hindus, an indigenous ethnic-religious group in Kashmir-now a minority, were forced to leave their ancestral home. The growing Islamic extremism transformed rapidly into terrorism. Much of the weapons and trained terrorists poured in by neighbouring Islamic republic of Pakistan. They, along with other Kashmiri Muslims sympathisers called for murder, loot, rape, and abductions of native Kashmiri Hindus. Left with no choice but to save themselves, over 0.4 million Kashmiri Hindus migrated to different parts of the country. In such adversity and betrayal, Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Kashmiri Hindu pharmacist in Srinagar, chose to stay back and serve his homeland Kashmir. On Tuesday, however, he was paid for his service and trust by The Resistance Front (TRF). Terrorists of the Resistance Front (TRF) shot and murdered Makhan Lal Bindroo. TRF is a Lashkar-e-Taiba front organisation (LeT). LeT an international terrorist group designated by the United States and United nations which is backed and supported Pakistan. The trigger? He was a Hindu, a reminder of Kashmir’s indigenous non-Islamic history that the Islamists desperately want to erase. Seemingly inspired by the recent cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan. TRF has began a gory repetition of the 90s massacre of Hindus in the valley. In sixteen days, eleven civilians, a majority of whom belong to the Hindu minority communities have been butchered in the Valley of Kashmir by Pakistan backed Islamic terrorists. In the recent spree of killings. Terrorists targeted Hindus, Sikhs and government employed muslims. In addition, non-locals workers a d wagers from the rest of the country, who have built and sustained Kashmir crisis after crisis were targeted. Evidence suggests that these organised killings are planned and organised by Pakistan backed terrorist groups, following the footprint of the 1990s genocide of Kashmiri Hindus. The revival of Kashmiriyat- Kashmir’s distinct pluralism- after recent sustainable development in Kashmir, has been a sore in the sight of Pakistan-sponsored Islamic terrorists in Kashmir. The roots of this planning lead to Pakistan as is evident from the series of events that replicate the 90s genocide. The day TRF’s Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed Bindroo, two others were also killed, a poor Dalit street food hawker, Virender Paswan who was killed within an hour of Bindroo’s shooting for being a harmless non-Kashmiri, and a Muslim resident that terrorists killed because of suspected links to security forces. All these people were killed for not adhering to the terrorist ideology against Hindus. In fact, it did not stop there. Three days later, terrorists murdered two educationists: Supinder Kour- the Kashmiri Sikh principal at a school in Srinagar and Deepak Chand- the Kashmiri Hindu teacher at the same school. The terrorists singled them out from the staff, ordered the Muslims to go out and shot those two. If this isn’t ethnic cleansing and genocide, then what is, ask the minority communities in Kashmir. The terrorist attacks and killings have launched the minority community in Kashmir into a hysteria of fear and insecurity. Many have fled their homes overnight, in a horrifying repeat of events of the late 1990s. After the last great exodus of the Kashmiri Hindus in 1999, there are barely any Hindus left in the valley, many of whom were those who returned after government’s efforts to resettle them back in their homes. However, clearly, nothing has changed for Hindus and other minorities of Kashmir and it likely won’t as long as Pakistan-sponsored terrorism continues in the valley. There is no doubt that a large part of this renewed genocide of Hindus in the valley also stems from the international aid that is given to Pakistan that it pumps back into its terrorist operations in Kashmir. While India scrambles to take control of security in Kashmir, international community can step up and support by immediately sanctioning Pakistan so that another irreversible genocide of a minority doesn’t happen on our watch.

Read More