Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 8: Kashmiri Pandit group namely Reconciliation, Return & Rehabiliation of Kashmiri migrants has expressed dismay that none of the union ministers visited the Kashmiri migrant camps in Jammu during the recent public outreach programme across the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Jammu and Kashmir outreach programme saw several ministers visiting the union territory from January 18 to 24. They travelled across the former state, but did not visit the Kashimiri migrant camps in Jammu," said a spokesman of the Kashmiri Pandit group.
The group said that Jammu and Kashmir is a 'terror' affected place in which Kashmiri Pandits became the first victims of 'terrorism'. The community has been targeted since 1989 in the valley with hundreds among them being killed, many women gang-raped and brutally murdered, hundreds kidnapped and tortured, houses looted and burnt, temple land usurped and many temples desecrated.
"The ministers visiting the UT were expected to visit the camps and meet the community members who have been suffering for the past three decades. By not visiting these camps, it is clear that the Kashmiri Pandit community is being deliberately ignored by the BJP. Time and again, the BJP has been saying in Parliament that the Kashmiri Pandits are going to be rehabilitated in the valley, but nothing has been done," said the spokesman of the group.
The spokesman said that the centre has been saying that Rs 80,000 crores have been given for the development of Jammu and Kashmir, but from this huge fund, nothing has been done for the development /rehabilitation of the community in the valley. The BJP-led government at the centre took the historic step to rehabilitate the West Pakistan refugees and gave them land and funds but nothing has been done for the Kashmiri Pandits.
"The bitter truth is that the violence that led to the ethnic cleansing of five lakh Kashmiri Pandits from the valley has not been probed. Over the past 30 years no judicial panel or SIT has been formed to probe the forced exodus. There are hardly any FIRs registered in the valley as the local police and administration did not let it happen," said the spokesman.
The spokesman said that in 1995 NHRC in its historical full commission judgment, headed by former chief justice M N Venkatachaliah, held the systematic ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits by 'terrorists' as an act of genocide. Why has the successive governments at the Centre, including the present one, ignore the NHRC decision? Why has no probe or commission of inquiry been set up to investigate our forced exodus, killings, massacres, rapes, abductions, etc.
The spokesman said that opposition parties in the country, including the Congress, TMC, Left parties, DMK, SP, BSP and all others have failed the community. They have never talked about the persecution of the minority Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir. |
