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| About 12 West Pakistan refugees hurt in Police cane charge at Jhiri | | |
Jammu, June 16
More than 12 members of the West Pakistan Refugees Action committee, settled in Jammu since 1947, and activists of Shiv Sena including their state President Anan Sharma were injured near Jammu on Saturday when the police resorted to cane charge to disperse thousands of refugees who were trying to disrupt a public rally being addressed by PDP Chief, Mehbooba Mufti.
Police said that "a mild cane charge was ordered to prevent protesting refugees from disrupting the PDP organised public meeting."
However, Labha Ram Gandhi, President West Pakistan Refugees Action committee, said "we had no plan to disrupt the PDP public meeting. We simply wanted to register our protest against the PDP leadership for having opposed our demand for grant of citizenship rights to us."
He said "our anger is against the PDP, that shares power with the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir, and the main opposition National Conference for having abstained from the meetings of an eight-member committee, set up by the Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, for examining our demands, which resulted in the winding up of the committee."
Gandhi said that "during the last 60 years we have been denied basic rights in the state." Explaining it he said "we can vote for the Lok Sabha election but cannot participate in the Assembly election because we have not been given citizenship rights."
He said "in the absence of citizenship rights our children can neither seek admission in the state's professional colleges, nor are entitled to jobs in the state Government departments nor can own any immovable property."
Charan Das and Chuni Lal, both 72 years old, said that "we had been allotted small huts in 1948 along with small pieces of land but we are yet to get proprietary rights."
They said whenever political leaders campaign for the Lok Sabha poll they "dish out promises to us saying that they will fight for securing citizenship rights. But after the poll is over they fail to take up our cause."
Activists of Shiv Sena too joined the protest demonstrations.Gandhi said three persons,Rattan Lal,Ramesh Lal,Mangoo Ram,received serious injuries in the police lathicharge.
PDP Chief,Mehbooba Mufti,said that the refugee issue "is linked with the Kashmir issue."Addressing a public rally near the scene of the incident Ms Mufti said "that once the Kashmir issue was settled all the problems being faced by the refugees would be resolved. "She blamed "some vested interests for engineering protest demonstrations in order to gain political mileage."
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