| News Details |
| Majority of displaced KPs willing to return to Valley but doubt seriousness of authorities in carving out separate enclaves for them | | recall earlier bids foiled by all Valley based major political groups |
Jammu, July 23, (Scoop News)-Over 43 percent displaced Kashmiri Pandits have expressed their willingness to return to safe enclaves in the Valley while 29 percent of them implied in negative, 23 percent others remained undecided and five percent felt the query is too premature to be responded at present.
A sample of over 100 displaced Pandits from different migrant colonies at Jagti, Nagrota, Muthi, Buta Nagar, Purkhoo and other places where the personal views on their return back to the Valley were recorded.
Surprisingly, over 98 percent of them did agree to return to their ‘Homeland’ having Union Territory (UT) status with free flow of Central laws as envisaged in the ‘Margdharshan’ resolution.
About half a million Kashmiri Pandits were forced leave Kashmir in 1990 following armed uprising against India. At present there are over 60, 500 registered migrant families in the country of which 38, 200 are registered in Jammu, 19, 350 in Delhi and nearly 2,000 in other parts of India.
Those interviewed argued that any decision on their return would be effective only after the community leadership is taken into confidence in formulating a template while keeping in view the attempts made earlier by the authorities on several occasions.
They asked whether Governor was serious in carving out separate and secure enclaves for the displaced community in the Valley as the separatists and political groups have started to oppose the same.
There is no transparency on how the authorities intend to go ahead on the issue of separate townships in the Valley, asked Pran Nath Bhat, a resident of Habba Kadal in Srinagar. “For our return, the authorities have to initiate series of confidence building measures,” he added.
The political outfits including Hurriyat have been insisting that displaced Kashmiri Pandits should return to their native places and live with their Muslim neighbouurs but most of these abandoned dwelling houses had either been burnt down or have crumbled down in the absence of regular maintenance during past over past three decades.
“Have the successive governments of National Conference (NC), Congress, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) brought out any ‘whitepaper’ on our migration or prepared any inventory of the properties left behind by the Pandit community at the time of our exodus in 1990,” asked Chaman Lal Koul, a retired Central government employee.
“We didn’t leave Kashmir because of our own sweet will but we were forced to leave the place at a gun point. We left everything behind to save our lives then,” he said.
Koul said the distress sale of displaced Pandits became a norm after their properties were encroached with the tacit support of land mafia and revenue officials. Despite official ban, the Illegal mutations were carried out of their (Pandit) properties across the valley, he charged.
“For instance, a cherry orchard spread over 1Kanal and 6 Marlas belonging to a displaced Pandit family was mutated in favour of a Muslim neighbour and the actual owner was shown as a tenant of the orchard. Three houses have come up on the same piece of land now,” said Girdhari Lal Pandit, a resident of Ganderbal district.
“In another similar case, a piece of land measuring 7K and 10M on which three dwellings houses of Pandit families exists before their en masse exodus in 1990, has been usurped by a policeman by misusing his uniform. He manipulated an alienation order by suppressing the facts before the authorities and obtained from the Div Com office. The authorities didn’t even bother to get the revenue records verified by the concerned officials before issuing the order,” he added.
“Can government of the day ever wield its authority to restore such properties to the affected families,” asked Pandit.
Growing unemployment among Pandit community youth following slow pace in implementation of the Prime Minister’s Employment Package announced in 2008 has resulted in their dejection and disillusionment due to indifference of the successive political dispensations over the years.
However, some of them worked hard and have excelled in their respective fields. ... |
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