“Jehangir’s son, Shahjahan built many palaces and also laid many gardens in the Happy Valley. His son, Aurangzeb, who ascended the throne in 1658 and who was the contemporary of Charles II, James II and WilliamIII of England again began to persecute the Hindus in Kashmir and elsewhere. Kashmir remained under the tyranny of the Mughal Subedars up to the year 1751, when it was conquered by Ahmad Shah Durani who assassinated his own master, Nadir Shah, soon after 1738.With this murderer and his Afghan successors returned the evil days of the Hindus.
“It remained for these Afghans to continue the work of spoliation and slaughter already begun. They collected all the religious scriptures of Hindus. With these they constructed a bund , called Mussuth, which is still extant. When they were tired of killing so many people with the sword they put them into bags and drowned them in the Dal- Lake. The place where these atrocities were committed is still called Batta Mazir (the graveyard of the Hindus). Their houses were ransacked, they were freely tortured to accept Islam, and there women were taken away from them and used as concubines. Numbers of poor Hindus died of ill usage or slew themselves to avoid it. They were not allowed to put on their turbans. If they appeared in public street any Mohanmmedan could ride on their backs and force them to carry him a certain distance. This was called Khos. This reign of terror lasted till 1820 when Ranjit Singh the Raja of Punjab conquered Kashmir and rescued the remaining handful of the Hindus from the claws of their oppressors. After the first Sikh war Kashmir was ceded to the British who sold it Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1846.” - C.E. Tyndale Biscoe.
Thereafter the Dogra dynasty ruled over the State of Jammu and Kashmir through the successive regimes of Maharaja Gulab Singh, Maharaja Ranbir Singh, Maharaja Partap Singh and Maharaja Hari Singh for 101 years till India became independent in August 1947. From then onwards Jammu & Kashmir is the component State of the Republic of India with a democratically elected Government.
