[MSN] Kashmiris robbed of their rich cultural heritage

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

    Kashmiris robbed of their rich cultural heritage

Srinagar, April 19 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, President of Jammu and 
Kashmir Writers’ Association (JKWA), Ghulam Nabi Khayal has said that 
Kashmir has been robbed of its historical artefacts and cultural 
heritage in the name of security. 

Khayal was speaking in a program organized to observe World Heritage 
Day. JKWA President said, “The centuries old historical arte-facts and 
cultural heritage excavated from different places in occupied Kashmir, 
like Terracotta tiles of 2nd and 3rd centuries BC and 5000 years old 
findings in Burzahama were looted and clandestinely transferred to 
different parts of India in the name of security and chemical testing.” 

He said that if serious steps were not taken to ensure the return of 
this treasure, the days were not far away when Kashmir history would be 
limited to myths alone. He said that the recently discovered fossils of 
a mammoth elephant dating 1.5 lakh years ago were transferred to Jammu 
University. He said that deliberate attempts were being made to destroy 
the rich historical and cultural heritage of Kashmir. He added that 5000 
years’ old history of Kashmir had got reduced only to documents. 

Speaking on the occasion a well-known historian, Fida Muhammad Husnain 
said, “Kashmir has a distorted history and the only reason for this 
distortion is Indian occupation of Kashmir and we are living in an 
occupied land from ages and nobody can accept objectivity in these 
circumstances.” Kashmir, Husnain said, has the historical evidences of 
1st century existence. “Ours is the land where world scholars meeting 
was held in the 1st century and the ruins of Parhaspora proves our 
eighth century identity.” 

Asserting that Kashmir has always met the step motherly approach from 
Indian authorities, Muhammad Saleem Baig said, Gilgit manuscripts 
containing Kashmiri paintings were shifted from the Valley to Delhi in 
1948 and till date we don’t know the reason behind the transfer of the 
valuable asset. He said, in 1895 Maharaja Hari Singh donated his Deewan 
Khana as museum for preservation of monuments but more than a century 
has passed but no building was constructed for preservation of cultural 
arts and historical treasures. 

Mocking at puppet regime’s inability to preserve the history and culture 
of Kashmir Hassrat Gadda said that in 1995 CRPF troopers had stolen 35 
art objects, which had not still gotten back. Gadda said that occupied 
Kashmir continued to be ignored by the puppet authorities. “The advent 
of Islam gave identity to Kashmir,” said columnist Zahid. The Vice 
Chancellor Kashmir University, Prof Abdul Wahid Qureshi, Zarief Ahmad 
Zarief, Dr Farooq Fayaz, Abdul Ahad Farhad, and Dr Mufti Muhammad 
Maqbool also spoke on the occasion. 

Meanwhile, leading Kashmiri English daily, Greater Kashmir (GK), on this 
occasion deplored the loss of valuable Kashmiris heritage from the 
occupied territory. The editorial said that India and its puppet regime 
had failed to protect Kashmiris’ millenniums old heritage. It commented, 
“There seems to be a deep conspiracy in neglecting the departments that 
have been set up for preservation of heritage of the state and promotion 
of culture”, adding, “today both the museum and the department of 
archives are in utter shambles.” 

The editorial said that despite Kashmiri intellectuals, academicians, 
historians and media professionals’ agitations and protests over the 
criminal neglect, there is no consideration for culture preservation as 
such. The GK termed it shameful that the archaeological finds from 
Burzehama, Harwan, Kotabul and many other places have been shifted to 
Calcutta under the pretext that they were not safe in the occupied 
territory.

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