Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 15: Panun Kashmir (PK) held a meeting of it’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) today to deliberate upon the recent political developments and also to formulate its response to the emerging challenges envisaged in the coming months.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of the president, Virender Raina and attended by the members including Kamal Bagati, Upinder Koul, Ashok Chrungoo, M.K.Durrani, Shiban Bhat, S.K.Garyali and special invited Ashwani Chrungoo.
Virender Raina, while welcoming the appointment of the Delimitation Commission for the UT of Jammu & Kashmir said that the Commission has the opportunity and the responsibility to correct the imbalances in the number of Assembly seats that exists at the moment. There is a need to increase the number of seats in the Jammu region in order to counter the perpetual political hegemony of the Kashmir region in the affairs of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir.
He appealed to the newly constituted Commission to carve out Assembly segments in a manner so as to give fair and due representation to the members of the Kashmiri Pandit community. In the past the unfair and motivated carving of the Assembly segments prevented the representatives of the Kashmiri Pandits to get elected from otherwise Kashmiri Pandit areas, he added.
Raina said this needs to be corrected by the new Commission. “We appealed to the Commission to create special Assembly segments so that the internally displaced community can find due political representation”, he added.
The PAC welcomed the reports regarding the framing of charges against Yaseen Malik in the case regarding the killing of Air Force officers in 1990 in Srinagar. The belated move is a welcome step but we appeal to the Government to also prosecute Malik and others for the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. It may be recalled that it was the JKLF under the leadership of Malik that initiated the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits resulting in there ethnic cleansing and mass exodus from Kashmir. “We now appeal to the Government to take all those measures so that the prosecution of Malik and others of his ilk is taken to the logical conclusion”. The time has also come for the setting up of a Commission of Enquiry that would go into the causes that led to the proliferation of terrorism and fundamentalism, leading to the genocide and mass exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir.
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