Steering committee set up for Kashmiri Pandits' rights

The Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora (GKPD) on Friday announced the formation of a "Political Steering Committee" to create awareness among the public, media and decision makers on "Kashmiri Pandits' genocide" and their sustainable resettlement in the Valley".

The committee will be headed by Moti Kaul, a prominent Kashmiri Pandit leader who would kick off a nationwide tour and interact with community members, media, representatives from all political parties and other stakeholders, a statement from the GKPD said.

"This mobilization of support is designed to create a mass movement against the cover-up of Kashmiri Pandits' genocide and the denial of their basic rights under international and domestic law," Kaul said.

He added that the governance stakeholders over the last 30 years had "failed abjectly" to address the community's demands for justice.

Kaul said the National Conference's call for pre-1953 Constitutional status had already been declared by the interlocutor's commission as "leading to a dangerous constitutional vacuum".

"At the same time, (the) Congress manifesto is a defacto abdication to the genocidaires in Kashmir. What Kashmir needs is strong, clean governance founded on the rule of law and order and based on the tenets of the Constitution," he said.

Surinder Kaul, the founding member of GKPD, said the Political Steering Committee was a logical outcome of the GKPD conclave necessitated by the "alarming, current political discourse".

Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits fled the Kashmir Valley when militancy broke out, leading to violence directed against the community.

--IANS

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