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| PoK refugees court arrest | | | Jammu, April 24,
Over 200 refugees from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK), settled in Jammu since 1947,courted arrest on Tuesday when about 1,000 demonstrators were stopped near the airport when they were marching to Suchetgarh border for crossing into Pakistan. women also participated in the protest march.
The refugees,shouting anti-government slogans, “ Yeh diwane kahan chale kahan chale, apney ghar ki aur chale, riyasti aur kendriye sarkarein sharam karo, sharam karo” marched in blazing sun covering a distance of 10 kms they were stopped by the police few metres away fromthe Jammu airport. The protest march had been organised by various associations of POK refugees against "continued step motherly treatment being meted out to them by Union government"
A heavy contingent of Armed police, including constables, had set up a three-tier barricade on the airport road for preventing the macrhers from moving to Suchetgarh border, 27 kms south of Jammu.
People, watching the protesters, offered water and fresh fruit to the marchers when they saw them sweating in the sultry weather.
Rajiv Chuni and Labha Ram Gandhi,who headed the protest march, along with leaders drawn from various other political parties like Shiv Sena, Dogra Liberation Front, Praja Parishad said "even being a party to the Kashmir dispute representatives from the refugees had not been invited to the Prime Minister's Roundtable conference which opened in Delhi on Tuesday."
The refugee leaders told mediamen before being bundled up in police vans that "they wanted to cross the border to seek return of their immovable assets that they had left at the time of partition of India in 1947."
Rajiv Chuni said "neither we were involved in the ongoing dialogue process nor our demand for compensation for the property we had lost in POK after migration had been conceded by the Indian Government."
Labha Ram said "on one hand the Government of India had no hesitation in holding talks with separatists and gun wielding youth,on the other section of people affected by terrorism and partition were being sidelined."
The refugee leaders condemned police action in arresting them when "we had decided to take out a peaceful protest march. "we had expected the police not to create hurdles and the Government instructing tyhe border guards to open the barbed wire fence for allowing us to cross the International border" they said adding" "we are for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue and it is unfortunate that we are being ignored in the talks."
Rajiv Chuni while blaming the Congress for "aggravating our miseries" said "the two roundtable conferences ended in a fiasco because leaders who represented various ethnic groups had not been invited to the conferences." He said "even the leaders of Kashmiri migrants had been invited to all the three roundtable conferences but we were being singled out for discrimination."
He and other leaders said that "our agitation will continue till we are given compensation for the property we had lost on account of partition."They said that "we want the Government to initiate measures for ensuring suitable rehabilitation of POK refugees who had been denied even the citizenship rights in Jammu and Kashmir |
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