Date:- 18 Jan 2019
Sumit Hakhoo
Tents to transit camps. This sums up the journey of 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits, who are going to complete 30 years of exodus from their ancient homeland following a selective killing campaign by militants backed by Pakistan in 1989.
On January 19, the community marks the ‘holocaust day’ to remember the traumatic events of 1990 when mobs ruled the roads of the Valley threatening minorities and a collapse of the civil administration led to en-mass migration of the Pandits, who continue to live without a home.
As Kashmir gets embroiled in a new vicious cycle of violence and rising radicalisation among the youth, hopes are fading for the minorities to return to their homeland and they are still living in camps of Jammu despite several rehabilitation packages announced by successive governments since 2004.
Moreover, nearly five years of the BJP-led government at the Centre have not made any difference in the lives of the militancy-displaced. Those who decided to return in 2010 under the Prime Minister’s employment package have been forced to live in ghetto-like settlements in the Valley, facing constant threats from militants and stone throwers.
During the PDP-BJP government, the state Legislative Assembly passed a resolution in 2017 calling for creating a “conducive atmosphere for the safe return of people” but the process remained stalled.
“We have spent three decades like this. First in tents, then in one-room pigeon holes and now in these leaking dilapidated two-room sets called townships. Resettlement in Kashmir seems a distant dream,” said Triloki Nath Bhat, who lives in the Jagti camp, some 13 km from Jammu, one of the biggest camps housing more than 10,000 people.
Jagti, along with multistorey housing units at Muthi, Nagrota, Buta Nagar and Purkhoo, were constructed under the Prime Minister’s rehabilitation package announced way back in 2004 by the then Congress-led UPA government.
The militancy-displaced were shifted to these camps for their eventual resettlement in similar townships in the Valley, but the project never took off.
“For the last 10 years, we are hearing about resettlement and jobs for the youth but no sincere efforts have been made. The new phase of militancy and uncertain security situation are making it more difficult,” said PN Raina, who lives in the Muthi camp.
Threats from militant groups, especially the Hizbul Mujahideen, and opposition from separatist groups in the Valley, have delayed rehabilitation plans with the administration succumbing to the pressure tactics every time a project was announced during the past two decades.
A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs in 2015 had also urged the J&K government to issue a white paper on militancy and exodus of Kashmiri Hindus in the 1990s, but the state continued to ignore these recommendations.
“The exodus of the minorities was a tragic consequence of the policies followed by New Delhi. The Centre continues to remain in denial mode,” said Ajay Chrungoo, chairman, Panun Kashmir, a representative organisation seeking separate homeland for the Pandits in Kashmir.
Govt flip-flop on Pandits
Courtesy:The Tribune,Jan18,2019