Let Pakistan take its refugees back, says MLA Langate Rashid

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir’s independent legislator Engineer Abdul Rashid on Sunday asked the Pakistani government to fulfil its “moral and legal duties” towards West Pakistani Refugees, who are residing in Jammu and Kashmir and “settle them at their ancestral places in Pakistan”.

While interacting with different sections of the society in north Kashmir’s Sopore, Engineer Rashid said people of Jammu & Kashmir “welcome the stand” taken by government of Pakistan asking New Delhi not to indulge in changing demography of the state.

“However, one has to see the humanitarian angle of West Pakistan Refugee issue. They are the natives of Pakistan, so the Pakistani government must make an unconditional offer to take these refugees back. People of Jammu & Kashmir see the issue purely through humanitarian view and nobody wants to see it through communal prism,” Rashid said.

“New Delhi, which has indulged in a shameless propaganda and is trying to give the signals as if majority community of J&K is opposed to issuing domicile certificate to WP refugees only for the reason that they are Hindus,” he said.

He said by saying so the “Indian media and politicians” are not hiding their “intentions that they want to change the demography of the state”.

On Saturday, Rashid was evicted from the pavement outside chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s residence in Srinagar, where he was on a 48-hour sit-in to protest the state government’s issuance of “domicile certificates” to West Pakistan refugees (WPR). Separatists also have announced that they will oppose the government move.

The state government has clarified that the WPRs were not given domicile certificates but only identity certificates, which in no way made them state subjects. HTC