Pandits want to return home Centre blamed for plight

FOC

?The successive Central Governments are responsible for today'splight of Kashmiri Pandits, as the government has never shown the political will to provide justice to minorities in Kashmir valley,? said Shri M.M. Khajuria, former Director General of J&K police. He was releasing a document book entitled, Kashmir Documentation-Pandits in Exile in New Delhi recently. He urged the Kashmiri Pandits to take a firm decision on their return to the valley.

The book has been compiled, produced and brought out by Panun Kashmir Movement (PKM) and has been priced at Rs 1,000.

Introducing the book, Prof. M.L. Raina, editor, said that the book was a dream come true for the organisation as protracted deliberations as well as strenuous and persistent efforts of long years have gone into its compilation and publication. The book held mirror to the saga of agony and trauma being faced by the Kashmiri Pandits due to the heinous atrocities perpetrated on them by insensate agents of death and destruction, that went on rampage in the valley of Kashmir in the year 1989-90 and after.

It was in 1994 that the Panun Kashmir Movement began to work purposefully to bring before the world the genesis of the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits. Its multidimensional activities and their positive outcome over the years were preserved in documents accumulated over passage of time, in a voluminous material, which reflect the consistent and hard endeavours of the organisation in the socio-economic, political and mostly the human rights areas. It involved a wide spectrum of pursuits like political resolutions, interaction with various organisations, political personsages inside and outside the country, a series of communications with and submission of memoranda to the National Human Rights Commission of India and its positive responses and lately the interaction with the Global Human Rights Defence (GHRD), headquartered at The Hague (Netherlands), focusing on the stark human rights violations against the Pandits of Kashmir.

The book highlights the callous indifference and apathy shown by the state and the Central Government to the unbearable physical and mental trauma and sufferings of the exiled people, living as refugees in their own country and as strangers in their own homes.

These documents received national and international attention of different organisations, Parliamentarians, Senators, Congressmen, international opinion makers, courts, tribunals and the people in general, who got a clear picture of the Kashmir tangle and other allied matters, including the man-made catastrophe of the aborigines of Kashmir, the hapless Pandits.

Apart from Shri Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo, PKM president and Tekchand Sarin, senior leader of Afghanistan Refugee Association and a political figure of Afghan minorities, the function was attended by a sizeable number of key figures of Kashmiri Pandit community, Kashmir-watchers and media representatives.

Sudhir Kaul, Narender Safaya, senior advocate, Supreme Court and Utpal Kaul, programme coordinator, also attended the function.