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| Paharies to gear up campaign in JK | | Old organisation dissolved, Bukhari new chairman | |
SHAFIQ MIR
December 26, 2009
With an aim to gear up the campaign for getting schedule tribe status, the Pahari Cultural and Welfare Forum have dissolved all its previous organisational set up.
Syed Mushtaq Hussain Bukhari senior National Conference leader and former minister has been unanimously nominated as new chairman of the organisation.
Pahari Cultural and Welfare Forum which is struggling for the schedule tribe status for decades has started its grass root level campaign across Poonch and Rajouri border regions to get the maximum mass support for its cause and all the office bearers working at district levels have been asked to activate the maximum people for what they call as ‘community cause’.
Sources said, in the coming few days, the forum leaders will meet the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and apprise him about the long pending demands of the Pahari people. The forum leaders will also visit national capital Delhi in the near future where they will submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh regarding the schedule tribe status for the Pahari speaking people of the state.
Giving details of his future course of action, newly elected chairman of the forum, Syed Mushtaq said “we have planned to meet Chief Minister in the next few days and thereafter our team of leaders will visit national capital to submit a memorandum to Prime Minister,”
It is pertinent to mention here that the Pahari people of the state have been demanding schedule tribe status for the past two decades since central government has given the same to the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir.
Lokesh Sharma, a prominent Pahari leader says that while granting the schedule tribe status to the Gujjars of the state the central government adopted the formula of divide and rule. “We have similar life style, sources of income and geographical conditions but we have been ignored by the central government. We will accomplish our goal at any cost”, said Sharma.
Endorsing his views, Shahbaz Khan, another Pahari leader added that they have started the campaign by forming the village level committees with an aim to launch a big agitation in the state. |
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