Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 19: A Joint Forum of KP Organisations today held a protest here to mark the 25th anniversary of the gory event of January 19, 1990 (Holocaust Day).
The activists of various KP organizations including Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo, president, Panun Kashmir, HLChatta, president, ASKPC, HN Jattu, president, AIKPC, DN Kissu, chairman, ADKPUF, Prem Singh, president, KSDF, Virender Raina, official spokesperson, Joint Forum, BL Sadhu, chairman, KMCET, Chandigarh assembled outside Press Club and raised slogans against the successive Governments for not redressing the plights of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
The KP organizations’ leaders in their speeches alleged that successive Governments have failed to address the problems being faced by Kashmiri Pandits.
They said that members of the displaced community were living as refugees in their own country even after 25 years of their forcible exodus from the Valley.
“It was the most horrible night in the calendar of the Kashmiri Pandit community, when they faced open threats to leave Kashmir or get annihilated”, they added. The displaced community of Kashmir has been observing this day ever since their mass exodus from the Kashmir Valley, speakers informed.
“The human tragedy suffered by Kashmiri Pandits need no semantics. However, it requires to be mentioned that seven lakh Kashmiri Pandits stand displaced while hundreds of their shrines and temples have been demolished and razed to the ground in 1989-1990”, speakers added.
“Thousands of their houses in Kashmir have been looted, burnt and vandalised and usurped while their lands and properties have been encroached upon,” they said.
The Governments remained mute spectators all along, thus making the community a victim of the State too, they claimed.
They further stated that Sikh community of Kashmir has been targeted on a regular basis while their representatives continue to complain about forced conversion of their female folk in the Valley. The recent reports appearing in newspapers threatening the Sikh community of the Valley to leave or get converted to Islam are a grave concern for the civilized global brotherhood.
They appealed the Human Rights Commission to take cognizance of the human rights violations of the non-Muslim minorities of the J&K.
“Kashmiri Pandit community is eagerly awaiting the passage of the Temples and Shrines Bill in the coming Assembly session as promised by the Chief Minister”, they added.
The temples and the shrines of Kashmir are a common heritage of the entire Hindu society and are one unit. Any attempt aimed at dividing the Hindu heritage of Kashmir would not be acceptable to the society at large, they maintained.
The recent statement of the Prime Minister regarding the settlement of the so-called Kashmir issue needs to be made clear to the nation. The Kashmiri Pandits as the primary stakeholders of the Kashmir territory seek full knowledge of the “secret parleys”, they said.
Under no circumstances the nationalist people of J&K would accept any compromise in this regard, they added.
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