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Decades After Fleeing, Kashmiri Hindus Still Fear Going Back

Associated Press

   NEW DELHI - Dr. L.N. Dhar vividly remembers the cold morning in Kashmir
   nearly 30 years ago. He left behind his plush bungalow and a
   prestigious job at a government hospital, becoming a refugee on the run
   almost overnight, with nothing but a small bag hurriedly stuffed with
   whatever clothes and cash he could grab.

   He was heeding warnings blared over loudspeakers outside mosques in the
   Muslim-majority region and on graffiti on walls and windows across the
   main city of Srinagar.

   Kashmiri Hindus got three options: convert to Islam, leave or be
   killed, Dhar said.

   "For a peace-loving citizen, for an educated class of people, our
   option was that we left that place,'' he said near his home in New
   Delhi. "That was the only option. We had no other choice.''

   Now, Dhar and thousands of other Kashmiris Hindus native to the South
   Asian region could get an opportunity to return to their homeland after
   India's Hindu nationalist-led government suddenly stripped political
   autonomy from its part of Kashmir, tightening its grip in the restive
   region. But many are wary.

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