STATE TIMES NEWS
Jammu: Terming the return of Kashmiri migrants to valley as their “birth right”, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Tuesday said the state government was firm on rehabilitating them.
“All the people in the House have unanimously passed the resolution and decided that these people (migrants) should be brought back to Kashmir valley and they should be rehabilitated there with honour, dignity and sense of security. Not only the government but the whole opposition is on one page on this,” he told reporters here.
“Return of Kashmiri Migrants, including Pandits, Muslims and Sikhs is on our agenda as it is part of Agenda of Alliance. We have identified lands at 3-4 places in Kashmir (for setting up clusters). We are working on that,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.
“Kashmir is their birth right since centuries together. It is their birth right to come back and settle in Valley.
They are not able to go to their ancestral places because of the security threat so the government has made a plan to rehabilitate them in clusters and finally they shall be able to look after their properties and the left out houses,” he said.
The BJP leader ruled out that the state government shelved the plan of setting up clusters for the migrants under the separatists pressure, but maintained that the plan could not be implemented due to Kashmir unrest.
“We did not succumb to the pressure (of separatists). On no occasion, the plan was shelved. Definitely due to turmoil (in the state) we could not implement the plan,” he said.
Hitting out at separatists for racking up the issue to polarise the situation, Singh said, “It is unfortunate that some people are communalising the issue. On one side, those people keep on harping that Kashmir is incomplete without these displaced people, but on the other hand, there are some who are opposing their return as they were the ones who made them leave in the first place.”
