Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 20: Various political and social organizations have expressed serious concern over the statement of National Conference president and former Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Health Minister, Bali Bhagat on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on Dr Farooq Abdullah over his recent statements accusing the BJP of promoting a Hindu-Muslim divide, saying Abdullah is resorting to selective outrage and political hypocrisy to hide his own failures and a tainted legacy.
Reacting to Abdullah’s remarks that a “fire of hatred” is being spread in the country by dividing Hindus and Muslims for electoral gains, Bhagat said Farooq Abdullah has no moral authority to lecture the nation on communal harmony.
“Farooq Abdullah is trying to portray himself as a messiah of unity, but history records that the worst communal and civilisational rupture in Jammu and Kashmir happened under his watch. His sermons on Hindu-Muslim unity ring hollow,” Bhagat said.
Bhagat accused Abdullah of deliberately targeting the BJP to divert attention from the NC’s role in the systematic marginalisation, terrorisation, and forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, which shattered centuries-old communal coexistence in the Valley.
Kashmiri Pandit Sabha (KPS) in its Executive Committee meeting held under the chairmanship of its president K. K. Khosa, deliberated upon the recent statement made by the president of Dr. Farooq Abdullah, regarding the return of Kashmiri Pandits to Kashmir Valley.
The Sabha observed that while expressions supporting the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits are welcome, suggestions that the community should return on its own, without a clearly defined policy framework or institutional backing, fail to acknowledge the gravity and complexity of the issue. More than four lakh KPs were forced to flee the Valley during 1989-90 and have remained displaced for over 36 years. Any meaningful discussion on return must therefore be grounded in realism, responsibility, and sensitivity to the lived experience of displacement.
Members expressed concern that, despite the passage of decades, no comprehensive, credible, and time-bound return and rehabilitation policy has been implemented. Key issues relating to personal security, housing, employment, restoration or compensation of properties, and social reintegration remain unresolved. In the absence of such assurances, advising the community to return independently effectively shifts the burden of State responsibility onto those who were compelled to leave under traumatic circumstances.
The Sabha further noted that a significant portion of Kashmiri Pandit properties in the Valley have been encroached upon, damaged, or alienated under distress conditions. Expecting displaced families to return to their ancestral homes without legal safeguards, administrative facilitation, and institutional support does not reflect ground realities.
Dr Ramesh Bhat a socio-religious activist while taking strong exception to Dr Abdullah’s statement on displaced Pandits termed it misleading and communal in nature. He said it was his Government in alliance with Congress when terrorism griped the Valley and minority Hindus where made safe targets by terrorists. The then Government looked like a mute spectator to this whole issue and did not bother to act against the gun wielding terrorists who ruled roost in the Valley.
Dr Ramesh said Dr Abdullah is rubbing salt on the wounds of exiled Pandits by his misleading and misconceived statements just to exonerate the Pakistan, its terrorists and secessionist elements who put the Valley into fire and destroyed its age old composite culture.
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