PART I

Chapter 15

NA BHATTO AHAM - A CRY IN AGONY

In the wake of Zain-ul-Abdin's death, Kashmir was again hurled into the vortex of chaos, disorder and unprecedented religious bigotry. Haider Shah (1470-72) lecherous and a rake, given to the company of ravishing damsels and bouts of drinking proved wild and ferocious for the Hindus of Kashmir. Not only that he harassed and persecuted them, but also killed them with all vengeance. Revolting against the policy of liquidating them, the Hindus in sheer anger and desperation mobbed most of the mosques built on the temple plinths with temple materials and set them afire. The Sayyid Ali mosque constructed on the plinth of a ravaged and spoliated temple was the main target and was burnt to cinders. This incident when broached to the Sultan touched his raw nerve and not taking it lying town, he issued an atrocious decree of chopping off the noses, ears and arms of the Hindus through the length and breadth of Kashmir.

Consequent upon it, the Hindus were swooped and caught and subjected to the vile and bloody orgy of flenching the body parts and limbs. Dragging Hindus out from their houses, a brutality in itself, many of them were sawed and chopped into two halves, an atrocity unknown to ferocious savages. Terrorised beyond limits, they flinched and wilted, fell and faltered and in pain and agony yelled out their lungs" Na Bhatto Aham"(I am not a Bhatta, a Kashmiri Hindu) only to avoid the bloody orgy of mutilation of body parts.