1999 07 00 In and Around the Metropolis- NHRC asserts jurisdiction over J & K - but says violence against KPs is not Genocide.

In a significant ruling delivered on June 11, 1999, the National Human Rights Commission has rejected a petition filed by the Jammu and Kashmir Government challenging its jurisdiction over the matters affecting the state and maintained that Union law had predominance in a federal state and as such Jammu and Kashmir was well within its purview The state government had specifically filed their petition to block any implementation of the NHRC orders pertaining to compensation and rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits

In another order of the same day on petitions filed five years ago by All India Kashmiri Samaj, Panun Kashmir Movement and the International Human Rights Protection Council, which had requested the Commission to declare the violence against Kashmiri Pandits as "genocide", the three-member bench of the Commission, comprising Justice M N. Venkatachaliah (Chairman), Justice VS. Malimath and Shri Virendra Dayal, has ruled that crimes against theim "fell short of the ultimate crime of genocide". The commission observed: "But against the stern definition of the Genocide Convention, acts akin to genocide have occurred in respect of Kashmiri Pandits and that indeed in the minds and utterances of some of the militants, a genocide type design may exist"

Elaborating on the points raised by the petitioners, the NHRC held that "the killings and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits must be seen with the deeper intent to secure secession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The crimes against Kashmiri Pandits are by any yardstick, deserving of the strongest condemnation".

NHRC ruling, however, directed the state government to take all suitable measures to "understand the sufferings of the Kashmiri Pandits and help them in returning to their homes and relief measures for making their lives comfortable". The Commission also asked the government to constitute a high level committee to look after the welfare of Kashmiri Pandits.

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Courtesy: Koshur Samachar Team and July 1999, Koshur Samachar