Dear Editor,
Entire country is celebrating ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ to mark the 75th birth anniversary of India’s Independence and subsequently ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign is gaining momentum day by day to promote awareness among people about the National Flag. On the one side the nation is gearing up to celebrate the 75th Independence day while on the other side Kashmiri Pandit PM package employees – the victims of genocide are agitating and protesting for the last 91 days in support of their relocation demand. To be more precise, these patriotic sons of soil are struggling for their survival and are begging to the government to ensure their ‘Right to Life’. They are demanding their immediate relocation to Jammu province as they feel total threatened and insecure in Kashmir after the gruesome killing of one of their colleague at Chadoora Budgam on May, 12 this year. But the indifferent centre government seems to be less interested in resolving the sad plight of KP package employees. It has been highly observed that present Union government and previous successive regimes in J&K have only exploited need, urges and helplessness of Kashmiri Pandit package employees. Initially, the economic package for Kashmiri migrants came-up with no agreement/ bond but very cleverly the then tyrannical J&K government amended this PM’s job package with the authoritarian package bond thereby exploiting the package employees to the hilt. In addition to this, the sufferings and woes of PM package employees have always been overlooked and disregarded by the previous successive regimes in J&K and still the BJP centre government is busy in showcasing the false normalcy image of new Kashmir. However, the fact of the matter is that the BJP’s balloon of normalcy has completely punctured in Kashmir as is evident from the fact that from the last 19 months attacks on Hindu minorities and other non-locals are happening day in and day out. Thousands of Kashmiri Pandit package employees have already fled to Jammu in wake of selective and targeted killings of Hindu minorities. The BJP centre government has only exploited the pain of Kashmiri Pandits without actually having done anything for them materially. It has become a practice for BJP to use KPs for only garnering votes in other states but on ground zero the Kashmiri Pandits in general and package employees in particular are being used as laboratory objects for experimentation purpose. After abolishing Article 370, nothing much has changed in J&K with regard to the security scenario. Moreover, the terrorists have changed their modus operandi and thus are they selectively killing Hindu minorities and other non-locals in Kashmir.
If the centre government is really serious in safeguarding the interests of Kashmiri Pandit package employees, then the government must take immediate corrective measures in this regard and order the temporary adjustment/attachment of all package employees to Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner’s Migrant office Jammu till normalcy limps back to Kashmir.
Vivek Koul,
Gole Gujral, Jammu.