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| Migrants want relief from Relief Commissioner's atrocities | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 7: Population of over four thousand Kashmiri Pandit families have decided to launch a campaign for the replacement of incumbent Relief Commissioner Ravinder Pandita as the officer of Kashmir Administrative Service has completely lost his contact with the displaced diaspora, particularly so in the last one year.
When Vivek, the five-year-old son of the poor Pandit Piaray Lal was knocked down by a tractor at Jagati, near Nagrota, and later he died last week, inmates of several blocks called up the Relief Commissioner so as to request him to visit the colony and initiate an official process for some ex gratia relief to the bereaved family. However, the officer neither responded to phone calls nor visited the migrant camp on his own. Furious and frustrated over the total neglect from the government, the agitated population set the tractor on fire.
The population of over 20,000 souls has been requesting Pandita to mediate between them and the Power Development Department for better supply of electricity as power remains cut-off to the colony for 16 to 20 hours of a day. He has communicated to the community that counseling and mediation are not in his job profile. The result is that the stalemate is continuing and the Kashmiri Pandit population has been subjected to untold miseries and hardships.
"We have distributed seven days of the week among five members of the family for bathing. I get my turn of bathing and washing my clothes in warm water once a week", Bansi Lal Bhat told Early Times. Pandita has not even responded to the public representations seeking staff, infrastructure and medical supplies for the local Public Health Centre. The PHC has been defunct for want of medical and paramedical staff and supplies for the last over two years". Unlike his predecessor Raman Bhalla, even the Minister of State for Revenue and Rehabilitation Aijaz Ahmad Khan has rarely visited the area. If Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has not visited us even once in the last five years, why should his junior Minister bother about the KPs?", asked one Maharaj Kishen Kaul.
Previously, all of the Kashmiri Pandits' representations, demanding easier procedural system for obtaining State Subject certificates or the Permanent Resident Certificates have also not been taken up with the concerned Ministers, partly for the reason that the Revenue Secretary Vinod Kumar Kaul and the Relief Commissioner Ravinder K Pandita do not see eye to eye with each other. As of now, the applicants, who are in search of jobs in the state and the Central government are forced to pass such difficult procedural wrangles that they prefer to grease the palms of the Revenue officials to escape the troublesome process.
"If we live in Jagti and apply for State Subject Certificate, we are asked to attack Shajra, Girdahwari and Patwar records and other revenue records which lie with Tehsildars, Naib Tehsildars and other officials in Kashmir. We face similar difficulties in obtaining Passport and other documents from the government", Avtar Sumbli said. He claimed that even the character verification, obtaining loan from a bank, verification for a state or Central government job had become harder during Ravinder Pandita's tenure as Relief Commissioner.
Even last year, when Pandits settled in Sheikhpora Colony in Budgam received anonymous threatening letters from a militant group or a front organization, Pandita did not bother to visit them for a courtesy call. |
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