From: bhatnagr@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Raj Bhatnagar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.afghanistan,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Hindu Refugees from Afghanistan
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:58:39 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati



The following is an excerpt from an article in the
5-11 July 1992 issue of the "SUNDAY" magazine.

------------------------------------------------------

   "On Wednesday, we were invited to Roop's house at 
    10 am. We waited till 1 pm for Papa Mohan. Then we
    started inquiring about his whereabouts. Kash and
    Bihari searched everywhere. Finally they went straight
    to your house and knocked for almost about an hour.
    Kash jumped over the wall. Suddenly we heard him
    crying. Everybody in the house was lying dead. We
    entered the gallery and saw Nitto (Chander Bhan Bajaj)
    lying under the dining table, Parjaiji (Krishna
    Kumari Bajaj) at the door of the dining room and
    Papa Mohan (Mohan Lal Bajaj) in front of the kitchen."


This capitalised telex message struck 37-year old Anand Swaroop 
Bajaj with the same ruthless ferocity as the Mujahidin bullets
that mowed down his parents and brother in Kabul weeks after
Najibullah's bloodless ouster. Ten days ago, Anand had flown
from Kabul to Delhi to scout for a house they could live in and
a trade they could invest their earnings in. His wife, parents, 
and brother had stayed back to wind up the flourishing pharmaceutical
business their family had nurtured for five generations. But
all those plans had been demolished by this message from his grief
stricken uncle.

Anand's parents and brother were killed by the Mujahidin in their
home off Tehmani Watt, one of Kabul's mail thoroughfares, just as 
they were sitting down to dinner. Chander Bhan's wife, Rani Devi,
and sister Kanchan, who witnessed the gruesome scene arrived in
Delhi four days later. Unable to bear the shock, Rani Devi had to be
hospitalized, while Kanchan Devi has locked herself in a room and
refuses to speak to anybody.

. . . . . . Swaroop's family was among the 50,000 Hindus who have 
become sitting targets for trigger-happy death squads in near-anarchic
Afghanistan. And as the Mujahidin train their guns on such religious
minorities as Hindus and Sikhs, these beleagured men and women are
making their way back to India - as refugees. They have left businesses
and trade establishments that they tended over several generations,
bringing with them, in most cases, just the clothes on their backs, and
such valuables that they could carry with them.

The Bajajs are among the Lucky ones, in that they have relatives to fall
back on in India. Many others don't have such a support system. Ram Pervesh 
Kapoor for instance. In Afghanistan, he could stand and watch as the
Mujahidin walked away with his life's earnings, looting a shop where he had
been seling shoes for 25 years. He knew of Hindu women who had been
forcibly carried away. More than his shop, he was worried about the
safety of his 18-year old daughter and the other women in his family. He
recalls that one day, when he tried to protect a friend's sister from
abductors, he was slashed across his body with a knife. That was the day
he packed his bags and left for India.

. . . But the journey back to India was not entirely incident-free. They
were stopped near Kabul and asked to leave one of their girls behind.
"We begged for mercy." sobs Pervesh. "Fortunately for us, those Mujahidins
were God-fearing souls who let us off, in exchange for some money." . . .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

---raj