ST Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 7: All Parties Migrants Co-ordination Committee (APMCC) has taken umbrage over a statement purportedly issued by senior Congress leader Dr Karan Singh and warned that it could file a lawsuit against the functionaries of his Dharmarth Trust for “threatening” the displaced minority community.
APMCC Chairman Vinod Pandit and National Spokesperson King C Bharti asked Dharmarth Trust to desist from issuing “barbarian threats” against the Pandit community. In a statement, they counselled Dharmarth Trust to instead “look inwards about failure to protect the Hindu shrines”. They alleged that Dharmarth Trust was “resorting to open loot and sale of temples in Kashmir valley” and it was trying to “hide its own shortcomings by stooping so low as to issue open threats to the Kashmiri Pandit community”.
Bharati said it was a very serious matter and Kashmiri Pandit community was “feeling unsafe”. He said the Trust had tried to “instigate local people against Kashmiri Pandits which equals to threats that resulted in mass exodus in Kashmir”. Dharmarth Trust, he said, would be responsible if anything untoward happened to any member of the displaced Pandit community”.
Dharmarth Trust, he said, was trying to take credit for a temple safe keep in Valley adding that it had forgotten that Kashmiri Pandits had rebuilt numerous temples and shrines , like Zestha Devi, Gangbal, Bhadra Kali, Sharda Mata, Vaital Bhairav, Kulwagi Shori, Tripur Sundari, Mata Kheer Bhawani, Manzgam and other temples while Dharmarth was interested “only in money-making temples and selling of others’ properties to the Kashmiri land mafia.
“APMCC won’t allow anybody to usurp the properties of Kashmiri Pandits”, Bharti asserted. He added that all temples inside Kashmir belonged to Kashmiri Pandits.
Bharti reiterated APMCC’s demand of constitution of Kashmiri Hindu Shrine Board covering all temples, shrines, holy places, hillocks, holy ponds and lakes. He demanded cremation grounds from Jawahar tunnel to Uri and Ladakh.
According to a newspaper report published on Thursday, Chairman-Trustee of Dharmarth Trust, Dr Singh had asked Kashmiri Pandits not to indulge in affairs of the Trust.
“We are surprised to see that many KPs have made it a business to be part of temples and shrines under Dharmath Trust. We strongly condemn such an approach,” Dr Singh reportedly said. “Take the case of Hariparbat temple where a self-styled group of KPs is collecting donation which, according to our information, goes to Jammu. This attitude is not tolerable. Hariparbat Temple was constructed by Mahraja Pratap Singh in 1920 and it is a Dharmath Trust property.”
According to the report, Dharmarth functionary Maj Gen (retd) Jamwal has said: “The shrines located in Kashmir can by no stretch of imagination be considered the property of Kashmiri Pandits. After the exodus, the Kashmiri Pandit community represented a small minority in the Valley and it was the Dharmarth Trust that fulfilled the responsibility of managing these great shrines.”
According to Gen. Jamwal, Kashmiri Pandit community “virtually disappeared from the Valley” after 1990 and Dharmarth Trust ensured that every temple under its management remained safe and operative during the turbulence.
Jamwal has reportedly said that Kashmiri Pandits had neither the organisation nor resources to manage these temples. “The Dharmarth Trust as well as other Hindu trusts in the Valley, including the Sanatan Dharam Sabha, the Arya Samaj, the Srichand Chinar, the Adi Guzar and the Dashnami Akhada are functioning efficiently and effectively,” he has said.
“The experience of the shrines actually managed by the Kashmiri Pandit community, with rare exceptions, has been disastrous. We urge that they abandon this negative and hostile attitude and in fact support various Hindu trusts that are functioning in the Valley”, Jamwal is quoted to have said. According to him several Kashmiri Pandit organisations had been pressing for passage of Temple and Shrines Bill to “recover religious property in ruins” and handing over of all such temples as part of their “ancestral property”.
Jamwal reportedly added: “Attempts by a section of Kashmiri Pandits, who are living securely in Dogra heartland, to vilify Karan Singh and Dharmarth Trust are highly condemnable and will be counterproductive for the community