An Indian diplomat has called for an Israeli model to be implemented in Kashmir.
Speaking at a private event in New York last week, India’s ambassador to the US Sandeep Chakravorty told Kashmiri Hindus (also called Pandits) and other Indian nationals that India will build settlements modeled after Israel for the return of the Hindu population to Kashmir, reported the Middle East Eye.
A video of his speech was uploaded on Facebook.
“I believe the security situation will improve, it will allow the refugees to go back, and in your lifetime, you will be able to go back…and you will be able to find security, because we already have a model in the world.
“I don’t know why we don’t follow it. It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it,” Chakravorty told participants.
The event had been organised to discuss Indian filmmaker Vivek Agnihorti’s upcoming project on the forced displacement of Kashmiri Hindus in the early 1990s. Chakravorty asked those present to give the government some time to implement its plans in the valley.
Kashmir has been under lockdown since August 5 when the Indian government repealed Article 370 of its constitution and with it, Kashmir’s autonomy. The valley has had no internet or stable phone connections for months and thousands of people have been imprisoned.
“I think the return of Kashmiri Pandits is being instrumentalized to justify a settler-colonial project in Kashmir,” Mona Bhan, an associate professor of South Asian Studies at Syracuse University in New York, told the MEE.
