27th yr in exile, KPs still uncertain about rehabilitation

Marking 26 years of their exile, displaced Kashmiri Pandits today said that apart from facing "Islamic terrorism", the community has also been a victim of the "administrative terrorism", which they alleged has delayed their rehabilitation in Kashmir.
"We were hounded out of our houses when the Islamic terrorism started in the Kashmir Valley, but in the past 26 years we have become victims of the administrative terrorism," national spokesman of All Party Migrant Coordination Committee King Bharti said.
"Neither the state nor the central government showed seriousness towards our rehabilitation. In the past 26 years, nobody came forward with a way," Bharti said.

He said the two major concerns of the community, including employment for the educated youth, and the return and rehabilitation of the community, remained unfulfilled.
Stressing on the security aspect, Bharti said, "You can guard our houses, colonies...But it's not possible to provide security to each and every Kashmiri Pandit when they go out in the market. Security is the most important aspect connected to the return of the community."
The UPA-1 government had offered a rehabilitation package for KPs that proposed Rs 7.5 lakh to every Kashmiri Pandit family willing to return to the Valley.

"Several families volunteered to return and filled up the forms. Eight years after that, there has been no progress," said Sham Ji Bhat, who has been living at the Jagti Migrant camp.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had in a written reply in Parliament said that only one family has returned.
The KPs say their return to the Kashmir Valley is linked to employment, as the youths willing to return need to have a source of livelihood.
"The return is not possible without an employment package. The government has only been talking about the return of Kashmiri Pandits. Do they want the younger generation of KPs to stay out of Kashmir?...The youth can return only when they have proper employment avenues in the Valley," a senior journalist from the community, Sominder Kaul, said.

The proposal to rehabilitate the community in composite townships in the Valley was mooted by the Narendra Modi government, which faced opposition not only from separatists but also the mainstream political parties in Kashmir.
Due to lack of employment opportunities for the educated KP youths who have been putting up in various migrant camps across the Jammu region, drug abuse and psychological disorders have become rampant.
Under the Prime Minister's rehabilitation package for the
community, the government had announced 6,000 vacancies in various departments for the members of displaced KP families. However, less than half of those vacancies have been filled so far.

"Even 6,000 vacancieswas a very low figure. But even after several years, the government failed to fill up these vacancies," Kaul said.
KPs also demand that the Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) status, as recommended by several parliamentary committees on home affairs, should be granted to the community.
Panun Kashmir spokesman Virender Raina said the community has the first and natural right over the territory of Kashmir and would return only when its geo-political aspirations as per Margdarshan resolution are fulfilled through political and constitutional means.
Despite the recommendations made by a number of parliamentary standing committees on home affairs regarding the grant of Internally Displaced Persons status to the KP community, nothing concrete has been done till date, he alleged.

"We demand that the IDP status as recommended by the parliamentary committees be granted to the community living in exile for the last 26 years," he added.
Panun Kashmir President Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo, who led a protest outside the Raj Bhawan here to mark the 26th anniversary of the 'Holocaust Day', said: "The Kashmiri Pandit community was made the selected victim of terror and terrorism, murder and mayhem on a large scale resulting in their mass exodus from the valley.
"Genocide against the community was used as a strong weapon to achieve ethnic cleansing by the fundamentalists and terrorists in the Kashmir Valley."

He said those who forget the history are condemned to live live it again and that is why that the leadership of the community has to stay on guard against any "hasty" move regarding the settlement of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir.
"The diatribe against the Pandit community by the separatist forces in Kashmir remains unabated despite complete banishment of the Pandits in Kashmir.
"It is the secessionist and terrorist forces who were responsible for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits," Chrungoo said.