We have tenuous situation on international border as well as LoC with Pakistan. This is a major repercussion of shelling and firing by Pakistani troops and Rangers deployed along the border on Pakistani side. Cease fire between the two countries was signed in 2003 and for some years it remained in place and the question of people forced to migrate from the border did not arise. But of late, Pakistan has changed its strategy of proxy war in Kashmir and has accelerated military activity along the border. In a bid to push infiltration of jihadis and subversives into our territory, a new plan, which the Pakistani Army has been pursuing relentlessly, is to opens fire and to shelling of Indian posts. The objective is to confine Indian vigil to the forward posts and thus provide the jihadis a chance of infiltration into our side. Our security forces retaliates, and more often than not, succeeds in repulsing the attempts of the Pakistanis along the border.
Nevertheless shelling and firing do often cause damages to the houses of civilian population living close to the border. The question is what has to be done with the civilian families that are forced to migrate and seek shelter at safer places away from the border? The Minister of State for Home, while replying to a question in the Legislative Assembly said that the Government had no policy on the migrants. He further stated that when the affected people migrate to a safer place, they are provided shelter in Government buildings if vacant or they occupy private houses. Some times they were provided with ration but this was not a regular policy of the Government.
Obviously, the MLAs whose constituencies embrace border areas demanded concrete policy for the migrants. The question is that Pakistan has not desisted from shelling and firing along the border. This creates scare among the residents of those areas. Some of them have been killed, some wounded and some disabled for life. Besides these losses, the migration from one’s house and seeking shelter in Government accommodation or with a relative or a friend is only a temporary measure to bridge over the unexpected situation. A permanent solution of this problem needs to be found. It makes little sense to say that the Government has no policy for the migrants. When the Government is unable to stop Pakistani troops from opening sudden and intermittent firing on Indian side, the question of resettling the border migrants arises and has to be taken cognizance of. We are surprised to know that according to the Minister of State for Home the Government has no policy for them.
In contradiction of the statement of the Minister of State, the JSM MLA asserted that border migrants of Akhnoor tehsil were given 5 marla plots of land at safer places. It is intriguing why the package of rehabilitation sanctioned by the Centre was confined to one tehsil only for obvious reasons. As the Minister could not produce a satisfactory reply to these questions, the JSM member and the BJP group staged a walk out from the session. The opposition joined them. Apparently if this is the ground situation then it is blatant discrimination on the part of the Government. It has been the declared policy of the Central Government to rehabilitate border displaced persons by allotting them five marlas of land at safer places. Why this policy has not been adopted uniformly is the question… Repeated walk outs by the opposition is not a healthy sign for the treasury benches or the Speaker of the House who should have insisted on a satisfactory answer to the question rather than beating about the bush. The impression gathered from this story is that the Government wilfully follows discriminatory policy and is unable to defend its decisions when cornered by the opposition. Those days have gone and the people have now become fully conscious of their rights. When discriminatory policy is exposed, the Government loses trust with the people. This practice should be discarded as it is obsolete and redundant and people are not prepared to accept it.
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