Kashmiri pandits' outfit demands creation of separate UT for their rehabilitation in Valley

Srinagar

The group made the demand on the eve of ‘Balidan Divas’ (Martyr’s day), during a virtual event organised to pay homage to the community members and security forces who laid down their lives fighting terrorism in the Union Territory over the past three decades.

They also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to formally “accept that Hindus of Kashmir were subjected to genocide".

The group said in a statement, "The participants stressed on the creation of a separate geopolitical dispensation in the form of a Union Territory to the East and North of river Jhelum.

"We want to state that the changes in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019 have made the creation of Panun Kashmir East and North of river Jhelum constitutionally possible rather than redundant,” Panun Kashmir chairman Dr Ajay Chrungoo said, “We have no hesitation in stating that internally displaced Hindus of Kashmir are caught up between the forces that continue to perpetrate atrocities on them and the forces of denial of genocide."

He said the policies on the return and rehabilitation of internally displaced minority pursued by successive governments in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as in the Centre have been the most brazen expressions of "denial of genocide".

He said denial of exodus of KPs has not only been destructive to others but has also led to spillover of fundamentalism into rest of India. The Panun Kashmir has already submitted the Panun Kashmir Prevention of Hindu Genocide and Atrocities Bill to government of India, he said.

"We earnestly hope that the Bill will be taken up for consideration and adopted as an act in the Parliament of India", he added. Other participants included Panun Kashmir convenor Agnishekhar, eminent lawyer Tito Ganju.

The participants said further reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir and creation of Union Territory of Panun Kashmir for sustainable and lasting return of exiled community is a geopolitical imperative if separatism and international intrigues in J&K are to be defeated decisively. "Halfway Separatist Governance as well as denial of Hindu Genocide has to be abandoned as policy approaches, otherwise the new changes in Jammu and Kashmir are doomed to fail," the statement read.

"We earnestly hope that the Bill will be taken up for consideration and adopted as an act in the Parliament of India,” Ganju, who is also advisor legal affairs of the organization, said. “Unfortunately Kashmiri Hindus were subjected to both genocide as well as denial of genocide,” he said.