Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 23: Panun Kashmir (PK) has strongly, condemned the recent remarks by NC president, Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, accusing both of collapsing a crime of genocide into moral and humanitarian rhetoric in order to evade legal responsibility and accountability.
Responding on behalf of the organisation, Prof. Tito Ganju, vice chairman PK, said that while genocide does carry moral and humanitarian dimensions, reducing it only to those frames is a deliberate distortion.
“Genocide is undoubtedly a moral and humanitarian catastrophe,” Prof. Ganju said. “But it is first and foremost a crime. When morality and humanitarian concerns are invoked to avoid naming the crime and fixing responsibility, they become instruments of denial.”
PK took particular exception to statements by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, an integral figure of the Hurriyat Conference who also served as its Chairman, who described the return of K Ps as a moral obligation, opposed secure residential arrangements, and invoked childhood memories and notions of familial coexistence. He said such language substitutes sentiment for accountability.
“Personal memories and emotive references do not discharge legal responsibility,” Prof. Ganju stated. “Calling Kashmiri Pandits ‘family’ while refusing to acknowledge the genocide that destroyed that family is moral posturing, not justice,” he added.
The organisation asserted that opposition to secure living arrangements after genocide reflects a profound disregard for victim protection, stressing that safety and enforceable guarantees are legal prerequisites, not matters of preference or ideology.
On Dr Abdullah’s statement , PK said his remarks must be viewed against the historical record.
“The genocide of KPs occurred during Farooq Abdullah’s tenure as head of the elected Government,” Prof. Ganju said. “In Constitutional governance, office carries responsibility. Moral commentary decades later cannot erase institutional accountability.”
Panun Kashmir categorically rejected the assertion that the return of KPs is “non-political.”
Meanwhile All India Kashmiri Pandit Conference (AIKPC) president, Rajinder Kilm has also expressed his strong resentment and deep anguish over the recent uncalled for and insensitive statement of Dr Farooq Abdullah on Holocaust Day, the day that marked the genocide of KP community from its ancestral homeland.
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