J-K incomplete sans Kashmiri Pandits: Farooq Abdullah

Jammu and Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits, said National Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah on Friday.

Talking to reporters here, the NC chief said, "Kashmiri Pandits are an integral part of Kashmir. The state is incomplete without them."

Abdullah expressed hope that one day Kashmiri Pandits will come back to their "real home" (Jammu and Kashmir).

Kashmiri Pandits began to leave the Valley in greater numbers in the 1990s during the eruption of militancy, following persecution and threats by radical Islamists and militants.

In 2010, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir noted that 808 Pandit families, comprising 3,445 people, were still living in the Valley and that financial and other incentives put in place to encourage others to return there had been unsuccessful. According to a J&K government report, 219 members of the community had been killed in the region between 1989 and 2004 but none thereafter.

However, in July 2017, the Supreme Court refused to reopen 215 cases in which over 700 members of the Kashmiri Pandit community were killed in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, citing the passage of time.