By Yusuf Jameel
Srinagar: As thousands of Kashmiri Pandits turned up for the annual mela or fair at the revered shrine of Kheer Bhawani at Tulla Mulla, a sleepy village about 27-km north of Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar, on Friday, coinciding with the festival of Zeystha Ashtami, the Himalayan region’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq made a passionate appeal to the displaced minority community members to return to their hearth and home and “live with us as before”.
While speaking from the pulpit of Srinagar ‘s historic grand mosque during a Friday congregation, the Mirwaiz who is also the chairman of his faction of separatist Hurriyat Conference alliance said, “Today is Mela Kheer Bhawani and I would like to felicitate our Kashmiri Pandit brethren on this occasion. I would also once again ask them to return to their motherland which awaits them, and live here as they did in the past, in our common and shared heritage”. He added, “It’s time to reconcile and rebuild the broken bonds. We owe it to our next generation”.
He also appealed to those at the helm of affairs in Srinagar and Delhi that the issue and sentiments of people of J&K thereto should be addressed through deliberation.
A vast majority of Kashmiri Pandits or Brahmin Hindus fled the predominantly Muslim Valley amid the separatist campaign bursting into a major violence in 1989-90. Majority of the displaced families took shelter in makeshift or rented accommodations in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country. The displaced families are currently living in various parts of the country and abroad and most of them are settled in life.
Apart from those who stayed put then, thousands of Pandit devotees drove or flew in from Jammu, Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of the country to join the annual mela and pay obeisance at their most revered place of worship back home. Politicians also made a beeline to Tulla Mulla to mingle with the devotees and go over their often-stated assertion ‘Kashmir is incomplete without Pandits’. Groups of tourists currently in Kashmir were also seen praying there. Several government functionaries too attended the annual mela and paid obeisance at the temple.
This story was originally published in deccanchronicle.com. Read the full story here.
