Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 18: Youth All India Kashmiri Samaj (YAIKS) in a meeting here, today said Pandits are refugees in their own country for last 28 years and nothing changed for the community since then.
The meeting which was chaired by president YAIKS, R K Bhat said the community has been deprived of its basic rights as well as right to vote during their exile. The meeting took serious exception to some statements given against the community from time to time and said that such leaders must understand that Kashmiri Pandits are state subjects who have been thrown out from their homeland due to the follies of successive Governments and failure of State to protect them.
They have not come from any foreign land and then Government at Centre as well as in the State was responsible for their mass exodus, vandalizing their properties and encroachment of their land, the meeting added.
It said it is unfortunate that Government during last three decades has failed to rehabilitate the community in Kashmir valley and counter the terrorism which is ruling the roost.
It said the people who are unnecessary raking up Pandits issue to divide the Hindus of the State must know that successive Governments failed to grant compensation of their gutted and damaged properties or punish the culprits responsible for the killing of community members.
It said the Pandits have been deprived of right to vote after their mass exodus and denied the share in the employment also over these years. The community was virtually left to begging by the powers at the helm of affairs as well as the separatist forces who have even closed the doors for their return to Valley.
YAIKS said it is unfortunate that some elements are opposed to the visit of community to Sharda Shrine which is the presiding deity of Kashmiri Pandits and which is one of the world famous shrines. The community has every right to visit the holy shrine.
YAIKS said that the such leaders were unnecessary trying to create a wedge among the communities on the behest of some body and they must understand gravity of the situation as the Kashmiri Pandits became victims of same mindset of which the West Pak refugees and other people from PoK became in 1947 and later in 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars.
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