The Islamists were given political space under Shah’s rule- Hindu temples were flamed, mosques were built instead and slogans like ‘Islam Khatre me hai’ (Islam is in danger) were raised. Shah’s govt which was supported by the Congress party had allegedly furthered the Islamist agenda in the Valley. Later Ghulam Mohammad Shah, who was supported by the Congress party had replaced his brother-in-law Farooq Abdullah and assumed the role as the state Chief Minister.
Abdullah had lost control back in 1984, probably after he had visited a conference in Kashmir and shared the platform with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik.
The movie which is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide begins with the episode of the year 1990 when the then CM of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah had tendered his resignation. More of them fled in the years that followed until just about 3,000 families remained in the valley by 2011. According to estimates, roughly 100,000 of the valley’s total 140,000 Kashmiri Pandit inhabitants migrated between February and March 1990. The film takes viewers back to 1989, when due to rising Islamic Jihad, a huge conflict erupted in Kashmir, forcing the great majority of Hindus to flee the valley. The dialogues of the movie like – “The truth of Kashmir is so true that people may find it unbelievable”, “Broken people don’t speak, they just need to be heard”, “This is a huge war of information, narratives”, have shaken the widely held notions established by decades of whitewashing and denials. Some even are finding it hard to accept that the movie is based on true stories and that the victims of the episode were never heard. ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie has made thousands of people realise the harsh reality of Kashmir and the brutal genocide that had been converted up or denied for all these years.