Kolkata: Launching a tirade against Nadav Lapid to call TKF a propaganda film, Bengali film actor Bharat Kaul said it is beyond his understanding that the Israeli filmmaker whose country of birth is at war with Palestine did not understand the sorrow of Kashmiri Hindus.
“I heard, Israeli ambassador Naor Gilon apologised to India and strongly criticised Lapid’s comments. I don’t want to make any comment on this because the matter has been give a political colour. Lapid is from Israel, a country which is at war with Palestine, and still he did not understand the pain of Kashmiri Hindus.”
“It is really sad. Only those who left their land can understand the pain of Kashmiri Hindus. For example, the people who left everything in Bangladesh and moved to India in 71, can understand the pain of Kashmiri Hindus,” Kaul said in an interview with Bengali language news outlet Aajkaal.
Kaul, who is a displaced Kashmiri Hindu, said TKF is not a propaganda because it is a documentation of genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in Kashmir Valley 30 years ago.
“Everybody has freedom for expression, but I could not agree with Lapid’s statement. From which angle TKF appeared to be a propaganda film? I did not understand what Lapid wanted to say. The film is not a propaganda. This film documents what happened 30 years ago,” he said.
The TKF Director Vivek Agnihotri has taken great care to highlight what happened to the families of Kashmiri Pandits like him, Kaul said.
He also asked Lapid whether portraying real incidents is unfair. Islamic terrorists killed a Kashmiri Hindu after dragging him out of the rice drum in which he hid himself to save his life. Then terrorists mixed his blood with rice and forced his wife to eat them. Is showing this gruesome reality unfair?
“I have said it again and again, Kashmiri Hindus are a religious minority in a Hindu-majority country. How can I explain this pain? One husband hid inside the rice drum to save his life. But he was dragged out and shot dead by the terrorists. The blood of the deceased was mixed with rice.”
“The terrorists then forced the pregnant wife of the deceased (husband) to take a handful of that rice and eat. Otherwise terrorists would have shot at her womb. They would havewiped out the next generation. I have heard about this incident from my ancestors. Is it unfair to show that incident in the film?
Earlier, Kaul had urged the central government to take strict action to stop ongoing Kashmiri Pandit killings, and to relocate 5,000 Kashmir Hindu government employees posted in the Kashmir valley to Jammu.