The Kashmir Files, the deeply polarising film on the Kashmiri Pandit migration, appears to be facing an unexpected challenge from within, with a senior Pandit figure associated with the film exonerating ordinary Valley Muslims from culpability over his community’s exodus.

"Kashmiri hospitality is world famous. We have no complaint against the people here. The Kashmiri Pandit is not the enemy of anybody here. We are one people," US-based doctor Surunder Koul said in a media interaction this week.

Dr Koul, head of the Global Kashmir Pandit Disapora, had been part of the 2022 film’s promotions and had in multiple interviews recalled how he had convinced director Vivek Agnihotri to make a film on the "genocide and ethnic cleansing" of the Pandits.

Currently, the doctor is a participant in a nine-day "heritage tour" of Kashmir organised by several Pandit bodies.

"Our civilisation, this 800-year-old Martand temple, is the heritage of everybody, whether Muslim or Hindu. We have never had any problem with anybody," he said.

The Kashmir Files paints Kashmiri Muslims as villains and claims they played an active role in the Pandits’ migration. Dr Koul had defended the film against charges of propaganda, saying it had depicted the truth. However, at his recent media interaction, he said his only complaint against ordinary Kashmiri Muslims was their silence during the Pandit migration.

"There is one grievance with the people — and you can express grievance with your own. When it (the migration) was happening in 1989 and 1990, (it was like) they saw nothing, heard nothing and said nothing," he said. "But we are not against them. We are coming as strangers to our home after 36 years; think about it."

Several Kashmiri Pandits have criticised Dr Koul’s remarks. Kashmir Pandit Conference leader Kundan Kashmiri said the remarks were "deeply disturbing, insensitive, and wholly unrepresentative". Dr Koul praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for bringing "very positive" changes to Kashmir. He recalled a meeting in Houston with Modi in 2019 where the Prime Minister reportedly told the Pandit diaspora that they had suffered a lot but things were about to change. "I feel happy to say that he really changed the situation," Dr Koul said.

Modi had publicly praised The Kashmir Files when it released in 2022. Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha too had recently provoked Pandit anger by exonerating ordinary Muslims from complicity in the Pandit migration.

On Saturday, addressing a Pandit conclave here, he said the Pandits’ journey from displacement to global success stood as a remarkable example of courage, resilience and determination. He said the time had come for the Pandits’ return to the Valley.

Chief minister Omar Abdullah's adviser, Nasir Aslam Wani, who too spoke at the conclave, called for the revival of the apex committee on the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. He said a structured dialogue mechanism was needed to find a lasting solution to the issue of the community’s return to the Valley.

In an old interview where he had backed the film, Dr Koul had claimed to have helped collect 700 testimonials from Pandit survivors. Of the about 50,000 people killed in the Kashmir insurgency, around 250 were Pandits.