
The Amarnath land row may have caused split among politicians resulting in the fall of the Ghulam Nabi Azad government, but it has failed to divide the Hindus and Muslims across the Jammu region.
During the nine-day-long pro-Amarnath bandh in Jammu, Gurjjars continued to supply milk to their Hindu brethren in curfew-bound Jammu while Muslim traders kept shutters down even in areas predominantly inhabited by them. Even sporadic attempts by some anti-social elements to engineer communal divide failed to have any impact on both the communities, who have been living together for centuries. Rather, when some people torched nearly a dozen kullas (thatched huts) of Gurjjars or unfurled the Tricolour at a place of worship, the victims saw through the nefarious designs of those behind such incidents and maintained calm. Similarly, when someone threw a hand grenade on pro-Amarnath protestors, injuring nearly 25 people at Bhaderwah, the former took it as a handiwork of anti-nationals.
When pro-Amarnath protests broke out in Jammu, the Muslims, too, supported them, taking the Valley politicians by surprise. In Kathua, Muslims held a demonstration against politicians from the Valley for their anti-Amarnath stand.
The bond between the two communities is so strong that even during peak militancy days, when militants engineered explosions outside a temple or a mosque in Jammu city, people from both the communities jointly rushed the injured to hospitals and arranged medicines and blood for the victims. The tie did not break even during peak militancy period when three lakh Kashmiri Pandits migrated to Jammu, adding to the burden on the already stretched infrastructure. Even when Muslims migrated from the Valley due to fear of militants, they were welcomed with open arms.
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