|
Right of Return
|
|
Kashmiri Pandits yearn for a life that perhaps doesn’t exist any longer |
Kashmiri Pandits protesting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi
_________________________________________________________ |
|
By Prakriti Kargeti
New Delhi: As the mercury in Delhi rose, a sit-in protest organised by Roots in Kashmir (RIK) tried to make it rise a little more. No high pitched slogans, no marching. Yet it was a protest, for which the Kashmiri Pandits credit their non-violent genes. On June 20, the World Refugee Day, RIK campaigned at Jantar Mantar for the restoration of human rights and dignity of Kashmiri Pandits who fled the Valley under the threat of ethnic cleansing by the terrorists. The protest condemned the apathetic attitude of the J&K state government towards the plight of the Pandits, especially those still languishing in the refugee camps.
|
|
|
|
The community has been fighting for an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) status for the last two decades. Even as the Union government has not heeded the demand, United Nations Humanitarian Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has also refused to describe half-a-million Kashmiri Pandits as living under forced exodus. Yet, the desire for an honourable closure remains.
According to Rashneek Kher, the founder of RIK, the immediate demand is for ‘a Union Territory for the Pandits in the Valley’, so that their ethnicity could be preserved. Kher likens his demand to the Telangana campaign. In this, they are joined by another Pandit organisation, Panun Kashmir, which takes the demand further urging for an independent probe into the killings of Kashmiri Pandits during the early years of the insurgency, so that such crimes could be prevented in the future. Rejecting various relief packages, including Prime Minister’s package, Sanjay Dattatreya of Panun Kashmir, says that Pandits will not go back to the camps in the name of going back to their roots. “We demand nothing short of a Union Territory governed by the Centre,” he says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|