Date:01/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/01/stories/2008110153670400.htm

New Delhi

Kashmiri Pandits hold protest

Staff Reporter

- Photo: V.V. Krishnan

March for justice: Members of ‘Roots in Kashmir’ protesting outside the office of United Nations Human Rights Commissioner seeking internally displaced people status for the Kashmiri Pandits in New Delhi on Friday.

NEW DELHI: Kashmiri Pandits belonging to various organisations staged a protest in the Capital on Friday to seek the intervention of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by declaring them as internally displaced persons.

They have appealed to the UN Secretary General to take cognisance of their plight as more than “400,000 of them have had to leave their homes in the Valley to escape persecution”.

Organisations that participated in the protest included Roots in Kashmir, Panun Kashmir, Kashmiri Samiti Delhi, Internally Displaced Kashmiri Pandit Youth Front, All-India Kashmiri Samaj, Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch, All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference, Panun Kashmir Youth Front, Kashmiri Pandit United Forum and Jammu and Kashmir National United Front.

According to Roots in Kashmir coordinator, Aditya Raj Kaul, over 50,000 of Pandit refugees are living in pathetic conditions in refugee camps even after 19 years of mass exodus.

“The Pandit community believes that successive Union and State governments have failed to protect their human rights. Moreover, human rights organisations have failed to highlight violation of their rights. Some of the demands of Kashmiri Pandits to the UN include ensuring adequate protection to the residual Kashmiri Hindu population currently living in the Valley,” added Mr. Kaul.

Important demand

Stating that restoration of Kashmiri Hindus’ political and economic rights in their State was an important demand, Mr. Kaul said this would give them equal status rather than a second class citizenship in their native land as share of jobs for them in bureaucracy, State supported professional educational institutes and the representation in the State Assembly has steadily diminished in the past two decades.

“Grant funds to Kashmiri Hindus for the preservation and documentation of relics of Kashmiri Hindu heritage and culture. Direct the Government to hand over the management of religious shrines, icons and cultural centres to Kashmiri Hindu leadership,” added Mr. Kaul.