Pak refugees take out anti-govt protest march in Jammu

The West Pakistani Refugees Action Committee-1947 took out a protest march against the state government here today, demanding citizenship rights for them.
Led by the organisation president Labha Ram Gandhi, over 2,000 refugees attended the rally at the Maharaja Hari Singh Park and slammed the state government for its failure to grant them citizenship rights.
Addressing the gathering, Gandhi said, "We had migrated from West Pakistan during the partition in 1947 and settled in the border districts of the Jammu region, but we are not being considered as the state subject of J&K, depriving us of all fundamental constitution, legal and statutory rights."

He said the Supreme Court of India in 1987 had held that the refugees were eligible to be included in the electoral, to acquire land, and to be elected in the panchayats, and asked the J&K Legislature to take action to amend legislature.
It is ironical that even after the lapse of more than 25 years, no step has been taken by the successive governments in the state to address the problems of the refugees, he said.
Gandhi appealed to all political parties in the state to remove all legal barriers of the refugees.