BLUNT BUTCHER
WORLD REFUGEE DAY
PART-1
JAMMU: After two-and-a-half decade, Kashmiri Pandits are observing World Refugee Day, today the 20th of June, in their own country. What could be more humiliating and frustrating for them than to be homeless in their ‘own’ homeland? This is not a tragedy for peace-loving minuscule community only but trauma for the entire 1.2-billion-nation, which is either indifferent towards their plight or ignorant of what is happening in the Valley of deception.
Kashmiri Pandits have again become subject matter of discussion for those who either engineered their exit at the behest of Pakistan and under the toxic effect of Kelinshkov or who expedited their displacement by injecting fear psychosis with sweetened tongues. Both had a vested interest of cleansing the Valley from infidels and Indian symbols.
What any irony, both the perpetrators in terror ranks and aggravators in the so-called mainstream political leadership, who miss no occasion in pretending and parroting “Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits”, are becoming real obstacle in their return back to the loved Valley of their ancestors. A hue and cry is being raised over their settlement plans.
The separatists, the terrorists (read the highly provocative transcript of some Burhan Wani’s video statement) and the mainstreamists, including Congress, National Conference, Communists and other small timers, have launched a vicious tirade against identification of lands for their settlement in various parts of Kashmir. They have been using term like Isreal type ghettos for the transit flats proposed by the Government of India. Their flight of imagination goes too far. They try to make common Kashmiris believe that these ghettos or cluster townships will be destination points for RSS to change demography of the Valley. By making such allegation, they are not offending and demonizing the Kashmiri Pandits but making those already settled in the Valley soft-targets and vulnerable to lunatic radicals. Similar were the charges against Kashmiri Pandits when they were hounded out of the Valley by killing couple of hundred of them in early nineties. They were either branded as RSS volunteers of Indian agents.
In such a hypocritical approach towards Kashmiri Pandits, how can the Valley based leaders of Congress, National Conference, Communists and others be sympathetic to the return of those, without whom they believe Kashmir is incomplete? These mainstream bigots are coining new slogans with each passing day against the proposed Pandit colonies.
On their part, the separatists too have plunged into the field with their innovative ideas about return of Kashmiri Pandits. A former terrorist, Yasin Malik, who is allegedly involved in the killing of some IAF personnel in the outskirts of Srinagar city in 1990 has announced to hold parleys with displaced people to work out modalities of their return. This is not for the first time when agents of the hostile neighbour have meddled in the return of Kashmiri Pandits but five years ago hardcore hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani had also held out a ‘king-size’ assurance to employees of the community in their transit accommodation at Vessu in Anantnag.
It is not for the first time when any separatist of the stature of Geelani has given ‘nod’ to Pandits return but several times in the past such rhetoric’s have been off repeated, with a condition that the migrants should also form a part of the ‘movement’.
For international consumption, Kashmiri separatists have been making statements about return of KPs but these were replete of conditions that they will form part of their so-called movement. Though, during his Vessu visit, Geelani had refrained from using such a terminology yet he did mention of Kashmiri nation while making ‘return back’ appeal in the transit camps. Obviously, Kashmiri nation means a separate and sovereign entity to which perhaps no Kashmiri Pandit will subscribe.
Since 1990, much water has flown down the Jhelum. A new generation has grown up both among Pandits and Muslims. They know very little about each other. They have apprehensions and suspicions, rightly or wrongly, injected by the generation that was in command at the outset of militancy. In such a backdrop, saying Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits or Kashmiri Pandits are integral part of Kashmiri society sans the ground reality.
The fact is that Kashmiri Pandits are a forgotten lot back home in the Valley. They have sold their properties in distress while many houses and land holdings, apart from the temple properties, have either been encroached or usurped by vested interests. These properties are under the wrongful possession of violators, ironically in connivance with the official machinery which was supposed to be the custodian of the same under provisos of the the Jammu and Kashmir Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sale) Act, 1997. Successive governments have failed in protecting the Pandit property.
Mischievous elements have brazenly grabbed the properties without any condemnation by hose who keep talking about great values and ethics.
(To be continued)
