The Kashmir Files: Congress Kerala unit's tweet on Kashmiri Pandits' exodus sparks row

More Muslims have been killed in J&K than Pandits, says the party

ITDC INDIA EPRESS/ITDC NEWS R  A 'fact check' tweet put out by Congress's Kerala unit on Sunday following the release of Vivek Agnihotri's The Kashmir Files has stirred up a storm on social media with the BJP calling it “insane” and an attempt to distort history.

In the tweet, which was later deleted, the party claimed it was terrorists who targeted the Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir and that more Muslims had been killed in the state than Pandits.

“In 17 years (1990-2007), 399 Pandits were killed in terrorist attacks. The number of Muslims killed by the terrorists in the same period was 15,000,” said the tweet, the screenshot of which has since then gone viral.

BJP leader K.J. Alphons lashed out at the grand old party for making “insane statements” and said everyone knew that over 1.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of Kashmir on communal grounds by the ruling dispensation, which was Congress or its supported governments.

"Congress and its allies created a situation in which the Pandits couldn't live anymore. They were murdered and there was a genuine fear for their lives. So they left,” Alphons told news agency ANI. He added that the situation has improved dramatically after the revocation of Article 370.

Union minister Jitendra Singh said the tweet posted by Congress's Kerala unit was an attempt to distort history and to cover up their own follies.

“History is witnessed and also supportive of the fact that all this was the cumulative outcome of a series of Congress blunders beginning from what is now recorded as the 'Infamous Nehruvian Blunders," Singh told ANI.

The Congress later came up with a clarification, saying the tweet was removed because the BJP's “hate factory” was taking it out of context and using it for their communal propaganda.

“For BJP, Kashmir is a Hindu-Muslim problem. For Congress, it's a long battle between separatists & those who stand with India,” it said.

Written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri and produced by Zee Studios, the film depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir following systematic killings of people from the community by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

It stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi among others.