E-Paper
Sikh, Kashmiri Pandit victims of terror on Pakistan stamps
The 20 stamps depict what Pakistani officials have said are instances of “atrocities” in Kashmir, including “missing persons”, “protest against killers”, “tortured women”, “human shield” and “homeless children”.
The set of 20 postage stamps on Kashmir issued by Islamabad, which had a key role in the cancellation of a meeting of the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, use images of Kashmiri Pandit and Sikh victims of acts of terror to depict victims of alleged rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir.
New Delhi cited the stamps, especially one depicting slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani as a “freedom icon”, as a reason for calling off the planned meeting of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The 20 stamps – issued by Pakistan Post on July 24, a day before the general election and when the country was being administered by a caretaker regime – depict what Pakistani officials have said are instances of “atrocities” in Kashmir, including “missing persons”, “protest against killers”, “tortured women”, “human shield” and “homeless children”.
However, several social media users pointed out on Monday that the image used in the stamp on “homeless children” had been issued in numerous news reports on the massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chittisinghpura in Jammu and Kashmir in March 2000. One of the children in the in the original image is seen wearing Sikh headgear and this has been obscured in the stamp by its denomination.
The image used in the stamp on “missing persons” is a photo of a demonstration organised by the Kashmiri Pandit group Roots in Kashmir at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in January 2014 to protest against terrorism supported by Pakistan.
The photo was distributed by a leading Indian news agency and Roots in Kashmir, in a tweet, said it had identified at least nine people seen in the stamp as Kashmiri Pandits. “Pakistan adds insult to injury by using picture of RIK PROTESTORS AGAINST PAK TERROR to propagate fake narrative of human rights violation by India,” the tweet said.
In a statement calling off the meeting of the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, the external affairs ministry said: “The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways.”
Pakistan Post officials told BBC the idea for the 20 stamps was floated and implemented under the caretaker government, which was in-charge of day-to-day affairs ahead of the election which Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won. The stamps were issued on July 24, a day ahead of the general elections and 25 days before the new prime minister was sworn in, and observers speculated that “the idea must have come from state institutions with a hawkish stand on relations with India”, the BBC report said.
