After The Tashkent Files, Vivek Agnihotri to make The Kashmir Files based on Kashmiri Pandits

After the success of The Tahskent Files (2019), director Vivek Agnihotri is now all set to make The Kashmir Files. The film is based on the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Jammu and Kashmir valley. 

The filmmaker said in an official statement, “Since a long time, I have been wanting to make a film on the Kashmir issue and after the success of The Tashkent Files (2019), I have got the confidence that I am matured enough to handle a sensitive subject like this,” he said. 

The filmmaker believes that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is the biggest human tragedy about cleansing a community with violence. “Kashmiri Pandits are homeless in their own country. This is the seventh exodus of Kashmiri pundits from Kashmir - their home. Since the World War II, there hasn’t been such a violent and barbaric ethnic cleansing anywhere in the world. This is India’s holocaust where at midnight the minorities (Hindus) were asked to leave the valley and they were specifically asked to leave behind all their property and women,” he said. 

Agninotri added that the film will take a bold look at the tragedy. “Children were killed with AK-47s, women were raped, men were cut with wood cutting saws. Houses were burnt. India’s most secular region was converted into an Islamic region controlled with Sharia law. My film is about the sinister politics behind it. Everyone is responsible for such tragedy. My film is about that,” he said. 

The topic on Kashmiri Pandits has hardly been explored in Hindi cinema. Apart from Ashoke Pandit’s Sheen (2004), it is difficult to remember any other film in mainstream Hindi cinema to have touched the issue. 

Agnihotri will be researching for the film in an unusual manner by carrying out an ‘investigation’ where real people would record their experiences. “We had been researching for the last one year and now we are planning to form a ‘Project KP Commission’ where we will record first-hand testimonials of the victims and also the perpetrators. This will be first of its kind effort in this issue anywhere in the world. I want a fair and unbiased investigation so that we can correct the prejudiced narrative,” added the filmmaker. 

The makers haven’t yet announced the cast and the rest of the details regarding the film's production.