A video is being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of a Kashmiri Muslim apologising for the 1990 Kashmir Pandits genocide on a Pakistan news channel. The Kashmir Files Director Vivek Agnihotri had also tweeted the same video with a similar description. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a Kashmiri Muslim apologising for the 1990 Kashmir Pandits genocide on a Pakistani news channel.
Fact: The person who was seen acknowledging the 1990 Kashmir Pandits genocide in the video is Javed Beigh, a Kashmiri Muslim activist and the General Secretary of the People’s Democratic Front (Secular) Party. While interacting with the Kashmir based local news channel ‘ANN Kashmir’, Javed Beigh admitted the Kashmir Muslims involvement in the forced exodus of Kashmir Pandits and spoke about the need for a collective apology for the 1990 Kashmir Pandits Genocide. Several Indian news websites have published this video of Javed Beigh. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, a video with similar visuals was found published by the ‘ANN Kashmir’ news channel on 15 March 2022. The description of the video stated it as visuals of political activist Javed Beigh accusing Kashmiri Muslims of being equally responsible for the massacre of Kashmir Pandits in 1990. ‘ANN Kashmir’ is an Indian commercial television news network run by ‘Aalimi News Network’ Private Limited Corporation.
While speaking to the ‘ANN Kashmir’, Javed Beigh, a Kashmiri Muslim activist and the General Secretary of People’s Democratic Front (Secular), acknowledged the forced exodus of Kashmir Pandits and talked about the need for the collective apology for the 1990 Kashmir Pandit Genocide. Javed Beigh said, “Dozens of Kashmiri Pandits were killed. I have seen it with my own eyes. Those who were killed were neither stopping anyone’s ‘freedom’ nor killing any Kashmiri Muslim. There were unarmed people. If that’s not a massacre, what is it?”. He further said, “Those crimes had been committed and for that, we should join hands and apologise to the Kashmiri Pandits in public, collectively. You don’t need a movie for that”. Javed Beigh tweeted the video on his interaction with the ‘ANN Kashmir’ news channel on 16 March 2022.
Several news websites published articles reporting this video of Javed Beigh. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, the Kashmiri Muslim in the video had apologised for the 1990 Kashmir Pandits genocide while speaking to a Kashmiri news channel, not on a Pakistan news channel.
