Pandits demand IDP status from NHRC

A group of Kashmiri Pandits today appealed to the National Human Rights Commission to declare the community as Internally Displaced People in consonance with the nomenclature of United Nations.
A day before International Refugee Day, the leaders of Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch comprising Sanjay Ganjoo, Manoj Bhan, Ajay Bharti, Ajay Pandita and Raj Nehru today met Secretary General NHRC Satya Narayan Mohanty where they presented a memorandum demanding "Internally Displaced" Status for Kashmiri Community living in exile.
"JKVM requested the NHRC to take steps to declare the displaced Kashmir community as IDPs so that the minority community is protected through a reasonably safe mechanism and makes their return a restitution possible in the place of their origin," Bhan, General Secretary, JKVM said.

He said, during the meeting, the team reiterated about the violence in the state since 1989-90 that has been characterised by the targeted killing of members of the Hindu minority community.
The group also underlined the forced exodus of "over 6,00,000 members" of the community resulting into a change in the very demographic profile of the area, he said.
It also brought into his notice the UNHRC resolution 1997/39 that deals with the scope and guiding principles for Internally Displaced people, Bhan said.
Bhan said it defines IDPs as "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised State border.