Doda migrants stage protest, seek facilities at par with Kashmiri migrants

Doda migrants staging protest demonstration outside Maharaja Hari Singh Park in Jammu. -Excelsior/Rakesh
Doda migrants staging protest demonstration outside Maharaja Hari Singh Park in Jammu. -Excelsior/Rakesh

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 25: Doda migrants staged a protest demonstration outside Maharaja Hari Singh Park, here today, demanding facilities for them at par with Kashmiri migrants.
Scores of Doda migrants assembled this morning near maharaja Hari Singh Park and raised slogans in favour of their demands. The protesters said that they had to migrate to Jammu from Doda following terrorism in 90s. However, they were not being allowed for inclusion of names of their young generation in the ration cards by the authorities concerned.
“Our concerned district administration says that we are registered with the relief commissioner Jammu office, and hence, they also do not consider us as all of our records are here. But here we are not allowed for inclusion contrary to the migrants from Kashmir,” they said and demanded facilities at par with the migrants of Kashmir.
“Even a child born in the family of those migrants (from Kashmir) gets registered on Ration Cards with the birth while our children even after completing the age of 16 years are being discriminated in this regard,” a protester told reporters. Expressing similar concern other protesters said that without getting names entered in Ration Cards, their children are devoid of many facilities and Government schemes.
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Another protester said questioned different yard sticks being used for different migrants in the same State when both are affected by militancy. He said that the Relief Commissioner concerned is not cooperating with them. “When they have to delete names from our Ration Cards they do it promptly after some death or marriage of some girls, but when it comes to entering the new names, they avoid the same,” he added.