Separatists’ opinion sought to bring back Pandits in J&K
SRINAGAR: Owing to the opposition of separatists over plans of establishing ‘composite townships’ for displaced Kashmiri Pandits, Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday sought suggestions from the separatist leadership to go ahead with the process of bringing Pandits back to the Valley.
The government, however, clarified that the land to be made available for facilitating the return of Pandits would not be exclusively for the Pandits community only.
J&K education minister Naeem Akhtar said, “the government was trying to make things easy for the return of the Pandits.”
“It is a matter to rejoice as a community that there is a consensus between us and separatists that Kashmiri Pandits should return to the Valley,” he further said.
Separatists like Syed Ali Geelani and others are saying that Pandits must come as they are part of our society.
Similarly, the PDP, National Conference, Congress and BJP are also saying that Pandits should return. But they have to return after 25 years. Where will they live?,” said Akhtar in Srinagar.
Reports say that at least three sites have been identified by the Jammu and Kashmir government for setting up colonies for displaced Pandits which the state govt has conveyed to the Union home ministry for assessment.
Kashmir separatists have been vociferously opposing the establishment of any exclusive colonies for ex-servicemen or for those Pandits who migrated in early 1990s after militancy erupted in the Valley. They say that separate colonies would be on the “pattern of Israeli settlements in Palestine”.
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik on Wednesday alleged that policy makers of India want to change the “demography of Jammu and Kashmir as soon as possible and for this purpose the new communal government is using its entire force and machinery.” They termed it a “Do or Die” situation for the Kashmiri nation.
Another separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has threatened a 2008-like (Amarnath land agitation) stir if the government failed to come clean on the issue of New Industrial Policy and establishment of Pandit and Sainik colonies.
Naeem Akhtar, however, said that Pandits won’t be settled in exclusive colonies. “They have a concern as they are coming in an entirely changed scenario in the Valley,” Akhtar said.
“The proposal about their return is that we must make land available where everybody can live. There is no question of an exclusive colony for anybody. But we are saying that there has to be a foothold where Pandits, local Kashmiris, every state subject, even Jammu’s Dogras can live. It has to be a normal habitation like we live in other areas,” he said.
He said that we can’t dictate Pandits where they have to live. “Entire Kashmir is theirs. Our appeal to everybody including mainstream parties is that kindly tell us how to go ahead,” he said.
The minister said that state subject laws of Jammu and Kashmir would be protected at any cost.