SRINAGAR: Kashmiri Pandits based in Kashmir Valley are facing a “demographic erosion”, the community leadership on Monday said, and urged central and J&K govts to make efforts to check it by ending their “systemic exclusion”.
“In 2008 there were 808 non-migrant Kashmiri Pandit families in the Valley. Today the number has dropped below 650. This demographic erosion is not accidental. It is a direct result of systemic exclusion and psychological warfare against our community, even as the central govt claims to support us,” said Sanjay Tickoo, president of Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation which works for Valley-based Kashmiri Pandits.
Tickoo blamed the leadership of migrant Kashmiri Pandits for the plight of community members who stayed on in the Valley even after the 1990 insurgency.
He said the Pandits who refused to leave the land of their ancestors are facing sustained bureaucratic apathy and political marginalisation. After a long struggle, the central govt in Dec 2014 extended partial relief by introducing a rehabilitation programme for Kashmiri Pandits, under which it devised two prime minister’s packages in 2008 and 2015. The packages included housing for the migrants to encourage their return to the valley, employment, and increase in monthly cash assistance from Rs 500 per family in 1990 to Rs 13,000 per family. According to govt figures, out of 6,000 posts announced under PM packages, about 3,800 migrants have been provided govt employment.
However, Tickoo alleged that non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits were denied any assistance. “The most distressing aspect of this prolonged injustice is the betrayal by sections of the migrant Kashmiri Pandit leadership, who instead of supporting their brethren, colluded with the administration to ensure that the benefits meant for the non-migrant community were never truly implemented,” he said.
Tickoo appealed to the Omar Abdullah govt to help the Valley-based Kashmiri Pandits get the benefits meant for the community. “The continued neglect of our issues has caused immense distress, and we believe the time has come for these concerns to be acknowledged and addressed in earnest. If this indifference continues, we may be compelled to launch campaigns in various forms and bring these long standing grievances to the attention of international forums,” he said.