‘Democrats Afraid Of Hearing Kashmir’s Truth’: Aarti Tikoo Singh Claims Being Censored In US Congress Hearings

The Kashmiri Muslims have suffered the most from the terrorist attacks by Pakistan-sponsored militants and this was being ignored by the Western media and activists, Indian journalist Aarti Tikoo Singh has told a US Congressional hearing.

"What the foot-soldiers of the Pakistani military and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) have done to ordinary Kashmiri Muslims in the last 30 years, pales in comparison to the human rights violations committed by the Indian state," she said on Tuesday (22 October) at a hearing on human rights in South Asia held by the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific in Washington.

"In the last 30 years, militants killed more Kashmiri Muslim civilians than the members of any other community in Kashmir," she added.

The terror perpetrated by Pakistan in Kashmir "has been completely ignored and overlooked by the world press," said the senior assistant editor at The Times of India.

The ToI Journalist later on Wednesday (23 October) took to Twitter to express her disappointment on the US Congress panel gagging her during the hearings.

“Pakistani Islamists drove me & my community (Kashmiri Hindus) out of Kashmir in 1990, Hindu India denied me voice for 30 years & Islamist Ilhan Omar gagged me today under the chairmanship of Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman. Is this democracy? No, it’s IslamoCapitalism talking,” Aarti tweeted.

Ilhan Omar, an Islamist Democratic Congresswoman, attacked her personally during the hearing and accused the Indian journalist of being partisan.

Omar, a controversial democrat, has been accused of having anti-semitic views as well as making light of the Islamic terrorism by describing the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in 2001 that killed more than 3,000 people as "some people did something."

Further, in a second tweet, Aarti accused the Congressional Representatives censuring her views.

“Every congressional representative from the Democratic party, Kamala Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, Ted Lieu including their chairman Brad Sherman were so afraid of hearing the truth about Kashmir & how Pakistani jihadists have destroyed Hindus & Muslims of Kashmir, that they censored me from the world. Shame,” Aarti tweeted.

(With inputs from IANS)