Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 8: Kashmir Pandit Sangharsh Society (KPSS) today said that the recent uproar and theatrics in the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly over the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025 have once again exposed the deep-rooted hypocrisy, double standards, and dangerous communal appeasement that continue to define the politics of the Valley.
In a statement issued here today KPSS, president Sanjay Tickoo said, the slogans of echoing through the legislative corridors are not only deeply disturbing but also a stark reminder that religious sentiments are weaponized selectively — and always in one direction.
He said the KPSS finds it morally reprehensible and legally indefensible that the same legislative space which has never, in 35 long years, uttered a single word in defence of encroached temples, desecrated shrines, or the illegal transfer of thousands of Kanals of Hindu endowment land — suddenly erupts in anguish when the question of regulating Waqf properties arises. This selective morality is not just appalling, it is criminal, he added.
Since the orchestrated exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community in 1990, there has been a systematic and silent loot of their religious and cultural heritage under the very nose of the State machinery. Encroachments upon temples and sacred lands, aided by forged documents, corrupt officials, and the complicity of local influencers, have been rampant. Attempts by the displaced community to seek redressal have been met with bureaucratic stonewalling, legal manipulation, and most disturbingly, a societal mindset intoxicated with the ideology that property of the vanquished is fair game.
He said over 1000 temples and their associated properties are either encroached, vandalised, or illegally sold off with forged documents — and no legislative tears have ever been shed, no slogans of faith ever raised in protest, no bills passed to protect what is rightfully ours.
Reiterating KPSS stand he said that religion should never be used as a tool for politics.
Tickoo said in line with the principles of justice, secularism, and the rule of law, KPSS reiterated its demand that the Parliament and the Union Territory administration must immediately table a comprehensive “Temples and Shrines Protection, Preservation and Restoration Bill,” specifically aimed at safeguarding, restoring, and accounting for the thousands of desecrated, usurped, or destroyed religious properties belonging to the minority Hindu community of Kashmir. This is not a political agenda; this is a legal necessity and moral compulsion.
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