Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Dec 27: Representatives of various right-wing bodies from several States here today lent support to the struggle of the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community, who reaffirmed their long-standing demand for a “separate homeland”.
On this day in 1991, Kashmiri Hindus had first raised their demand for a “distinct homeland” within Kashmir valley and called it Panun (our) Kashmir. They sought to be governed as a centrally-administered territory under the Indian constitution.
The community observes December 28 as ‘Homeland Day’ when the ‘Margdarshan Resolution’ was passed. The Resolution passed in 1991 advocates a separate homeland for seven lakh displaced Kashmiri Pandits on the north and east of river Jhelum.
Panun Kashmir, a civil society movement from the community, held its second ‘International Kashmir Hindu Youth Conference’ in the national capital today to mark the anniversary of the Homeland Day.
“On this day, we continue to reaffirm our demand for a separate homeland, a union territory under the Constitution. On that exodus on January 19 (1990), not us Kashmiri Pandits but spirit of India had left, and we want to restore that spirit.
“We also want the killings of our brothers and sisters to be declared as a genocide, an ethnic cleansing, and a tribunal to be set up for probing into the violence that occurred during that period,” Convener, Panun Kashmir, Agnishekhar said.
The Hindu outfit, whose representatives took part in the conference included Hindu Samhati (West Bengal), Shri Ram Sena (karnataka), Sanatan Sanstha (Mumabi), Hindu Makal Katchi (Tamil Nadu), Shiv Sena and Hindu Gouansh Rakshan Samiti.
“Our first youth conference was held in 2012 in Pune, which had resolved to reach out to nationalists and like-minded people across the country to seek support for our movement, and this conference in Delhi is the culmination of the efforts in the last three years,” said Helsinki-based Veer Ji Wangoo, spokesperson, Friends of Panun Kashmir Overseas, which works on youth mobilisation.
“This demand for homeland for Kashmiri Pandits is valid, and I support it. But the struggle for this would not be easy,” said Tapan Ghosh of Hindu Samhati.
On the occasion Omkar Nath Raina awards which were instituted by Panun Kashmir were given away by the organizers. Mr Raina was an ideologue of Panun Kashmir and one of its founder members.
Delhi Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee chief Manjit Singh, who was the chief guest on the occasion also expressed his solidarity with the cause of the Pandits, and asked them to “engage in dialogues with even those people and politicians, with whom they disagree.”
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