Hindu American Foundation holding nation-wide candlelight vigils honoring 30th anniversary of Kashmiri Pandit Exodus

Washington, DC (January 14, 2019) — On Sunday, January 19, 2020 the Hindu American Foundation is organizing candlelight vigils in several major cities in the US to honor the 30th anniversary of the Kashmiri Pandit Exodus.

Thirty years ago, Kashmiri Hindus (known as Pandits) experienced unimaginable devastation when they were cleansed from their ancestral homeland. The Pakistan-sponsored insurgency and campaign of targeted killings, rape, threats, and destruction of properties and religious sites spanned over many years. But events on January 19, 1990 reached a fevered pitch and culminated in mass panic and the forced displacement of 95% of the Kashmiri Hindu population.

On that day, newspapers, posted fliers, and mosques issued declarations that Kashmiri Hindus were infidels and had to leave Kashmir, convert to Islam, or be killed.

The campaign, according to the former ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, Hussain Haqqani, was part of an orchestrated campaign by Islamist militant groups sponsored by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency to create as Islamic state in Kashmir.

In the days, weeks, and months after January 19, 1990 some 350,000 Kashmiri Hindus were forced out of Kashmir on threat of death.