Oppn: Rehabilitate Pandits to places from where they left
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with J & K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Source: PTI photo)
J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s assurance to the Centre that the state government will “acquire and provide land for composite townships” for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits is set to trigger a controversy. While the Separatists have vowed to resist it, the PDP said that composite townships is part of the “reintegration of Kashmiri Pandits into the society” as promised in alliance with the BJP and that the townships will not be exclusive.
Major political parties across the mainstream-separatist divide, however, have rejected the idea saying that they should be rehabilitated at the places from where they left in the 1990s.
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“When we were in power, we had sent a revised package for the rehabilitation. We wanted to get them back to their villages and rehabilitate them there,” state Congress chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir said. The National Conference said that the settlement of Kashmiri Pandits in separate colonies “is not possible”. “It is not good for them (Pandits), it is not good for the state,” said NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar.
The Separatists say they will oppose any move to settle Kashmiri Pandits in separate enclaves. “They (Pandits) are part of us… They should be rehabilitated to where they were living before they left,” Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani said. He accused the PDP of working on the RSS plan and vowed to resist it.
Source:: Indian Express
