| NC shedding ‘crocodile tears’ over plight of KPs | | Politicizes their apathies, forgets past rants | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 25: National Conference leaders have all of a sudden come out of the shell, posing for pictures with the aggrieved Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. What the party is forgetting are the rants it used in the past against the bruised community.
On Friday NC leaders met Kashmiri Pandits in Srinagar. The KPs are sitting on a strike, demanding fulfillment of their pending demands. The NC through its media handle has given wide publicity to the fact that how bad it feels about exodus of KPs in the Valley and it is ready to play its role in addressing the plight of the community at all forums.
On social media, as the statement was uploaded by the party’s media cell, it generated a heated debate about how the NC has been politicizing the grievances of Kashmir’s Pandit community and is using them as a bait to hoodwink voters. “This is nothing but yet another attempt to steal limelight and remain relevant when the party is facing its greatest ever identity crisis since its inception. However, the fact is that times have drastically changed and no longer can the political parties seek personal aggrandizement out of the community’s woes,” wrote a netizen while commenting upon the event.
The story dates back to January 19, 2016. Speaking in a function, former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah had blamed Kashmiri Pandits for not returning to their homes.
Farooq Abdullah had said that several Pandits who had made their homes in Delhi had come to see him when the JK government asked them to return to the Valley.
"When the government made a move that the officers and doctors who are settled here should come back, they came to see me and said, look our children are now in schools here, our parents are ill and need medical care, we can't leave them back. So for God's sake let us live here," he had claimed.
"Don't wait till the last guns stop firing. Come home!", he said that he had urged them, adding "Who are you waiting for. Don't wait. You think Farooq Abdullah will come, hold your hand and take you there.”
Abdullah said he had made efforts to help the Pandits return to the Valley but they continued to remain skeptical.
"I met them as a chief minister and even after that, I have gone to their homes (to request them to return.) It's not only me, but even Hurriyat leaders have come to you and told you to please come back," the former chief minister said.
Pertinently, Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of their homeland in 1990 to live in exile. |
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