Since September 11, 2001, world media and politicians have talked a lot about Islamic Terrorism and its latest victims in the United States. Much has been written about Afghanis who have suffered at the hands of Taliban and its previous rulers. Every major media outlet has a correspondent in Afghanistan covering the atrocities inflicted upon local innocent Afghanis. Every newspaper has carried long op-eds and editorials about Islam, Islamic Terrorism and Global Terrorism. We have also seen some renowned media personalities and some "I-will-tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear-politicians" talk about Islam as a peaceful religion. And all this is happening because Islamic Terrorists struck the heart of the only super-power left on the face of this earth and we lost thousands of precious innocent lives.

But does anyone know that long before September 11, 2001 happened, January 20, 1990 happened on this same earth? Not in New York. not in Pentagon. But in a small place known as Kashmir – once known as Paradise on Earth. And since that January 20^th, many September 11s’ have happened in that part of the world. And many mini-September 11s’ are still happening on a daily basis. But the mainstream media covers none of that venue of terrorism. Sometimes one wonders if the value of life is different in different parts of the world. Just couple of days back, I was watching CNN and suddenly they started beaming ‘BREAKING NEWS’…’BREAKING NEWS’…and the news was that a suicide bomber exploded a bomb in a bus in Israel and killed three people. That was a BREAKING NEWS. Right around the same time, 22 people were killed in Kashmir and that was not even reported. Not that the three lives lost in Isreal were not innocent lives, but 22 lives lost in Kashmir were innocent too. I fail to understand the difference between 3 people killed by Islamic Terrorists in Israel and 22 people killed by Islamic Terrorists in Kashmir, India.

In both cases, it innocent lives were lost. But it is disturbing that mainstream media outlets equate innocent lives with their Nielsen Ratings. Coming back to Kashmir. Does anyone know that Kashmiri Hindus are the original inhabitants of Kashmir? Long before Islamic marauders invaded the region and started killing local inhabitants, there were no Islam in Kashmir. During the last 500 years, on numerous occasions, Islamic invaders have killed, maimed, converted and ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Hindus. After going through a long history of ethnic cleansing, the Kashmiri Hindu population had reduced to 700,000 in 1990. Out of these 700,000, about 500,000 lived in Kashmir. In 1989, ethnic cleansing led by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists reduced the number of Kashmiri Hindus in Kashmir to about 2000. In the last two decades, about 5000 Kashmiri Hindus have been killed by Islamic terrorists in Kashmir. That is about 1% of their total population living in Kashmir. Imagine killing 1% of entire population of 6 Billion people. That would be around 60 Million people. Would you tolerate that? Would anyone tolerate that? I don’t see any difference between Hitler persecuting Jews and Islamic terrorists persecuting Kashmiri Hindus. It is nothing but genocide. It was genocide THEN. It is genocide NOW.

But who is watching and caring? Those who claim to be fighting a global war against terror have made it clear that lives of Kashmiri Hindus are not important. It is a mountain of an effort to get US administration officials to even talk of Pakistan and terrorism in the same sentence. 500,000 Kashmiri Hindus have been living like refugees in their own country. And it is their 12^th year in exile. They were forced to leave everything they had back in their homes and run for their lives in the darkness of night of January 20^th 1990. And they are still running for their lives. Since 1989, we have not been able to visit our own abandoned homes in Kashmir. FREE Citizens of a FREE World. And I can not visit my own home? What kind of FREEDOM are we talking about? Has somebody changed the meaning of FREEDOM and I didn’t notice. May be I need to revisit my dictionary.