KP employees' protest enters 7th day

Protests by angry Kashmiri Pandit employees, who have refused to join work citing unrest and alleged stone-pelting on their transit camps in Kashmir, entered the seventh day today over demands that other members of the minority community be evacuated from the Valley.
The employees, including women and children, continued their 'dharna' at the Relief Commissioners Office (RCO) and raised slogans against the state and the central governments.
They criticised the government for failing to provide them security.
"It is the seventh day of the protest. The state and central governments are unmoved. They do not care about us. They have failed to reach out to us," said RJ Saproo, one of the employees.

"The situation is very bad. Police stations have been burnt down, security force and army camps have been attacked, our transit camps were stoned and houses burnt. But what security do we have," he said.
Members of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, the Kashmiri Pandit IT Association and the All Party Migrant Coordination Committee today joined the protesting employees at the RCO complex and extended their support.

"We have extended full support to them. The situation is very bad. They will become targets in Kashmir in this situation. Government should not force them to return," KPIT President Arvind Kaul said.

More than 1,600 displaced Kashmiri Hindu youths had been recruited under Prime Minister's Special employment package and posted in Kashmir voluntarily.
Of them, over 500 employees escaped from Haal transit accommodation in Pulwama, Baramulla, Kupwara transit camps, Vessu and Mattan KP employees colonies inAnantnag district, after the unrest began and managed to reach Jammu.
The employees today submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs, refusing to go back to the Valley due to the violent protests since the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
"We have sent a memorandum to the Centre and the MHA through the RCO in which we have give them entire account of happenings with us in Kashmir. We will not go back," Saproo said.

"We are thinking of moving to the court in view of fear psychosis and terror among us," he added.