Jammu: Kashmiri Pandit employees on Saturday staged a protest in Jammu to reiterate their demand of relocation from Kashmir to Jammu in view of recent civilian killings in the Valley. Scores of members from the community, who have mass migrated from Kashmir in the wake of the armed insurgency of the 1990s, gathered at Press Club in Jammu to demand their relocation.
The Pandits demanded that the government come up with a “holistic solution” to their problem. “We are demanding relocation from Kashmir to Jammu in view of the killings in the Valley. We are not safe given the current security situation there. Let the government temporarily shift us to Jammu till the security situation improves in the Valley. But there has been no response from the administration. Three decades passed, but our situation has not changed,” Sunny, a protesting Pandit said.
He said that successive governments had failed to address their issues so far while maintaining that he did not pinpoint any particular dispensation. Another protesting KP, Lalit, who originally hails from Anantnag district in Kashmir, said, “Everybody knows our tragedy” while demanding the Ministry of Home Affairs revisit the PM package policy.
Also read: Relocate us to Jammu, demand Migrant Kashmiri Pandit employees
The KP employees recruited under the PM Package scheme have been consistently protesting to relocate out of the Valley for their security after their fellow employee Rahul Bhat was shot dead at his office in the Chadoora area in Budgam district. The demand turned shriller after the subsequent killings of a female Hindu teacher Rajni Bala and a banker from Rajasthan days later.
A non-local labourer was also killed in Budgam soon afterwards. It may be recalled that the LG Manoj Sinha-led J& administration had assured the Kashmiri Pandits that “concrete steps would be taken by June 6” over their demands after which Kashmiri Pandits had called off their protest. However, the KPs lamented that nothing was done on the ground.
Significantly, the Jammu and Kashmir police on August 10 said that all the militants, barring one, who were involved in targeted killings of minorities in the Valley, had been killed by security forces. ADGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar said that three local militants of the LeT outfit were killed in Budgam on the day, of whom Lateef Rather, a local from Budgam was involved in the killing of the PM package employee Rahul Bhat.
