[Reader-list] JOINT PRESS STATEMENT OF PANUN KASHMIR on Spl. Package announced by the PM

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sanjay moza <sanjaymoza2005 at yahoo.com>
Date: Apr 30, 2008 12:24 AM
Subject: JOINT PRESS STATEMENT OF PANUN KASHMIR

*

Panun Kashmir*

* PRESS BRIEF ISSUED JOINTLY BY DR. AJAY CHRUNGOO
** & DR. AGNISHEKHAR AT JAMMU ON 30TH APRIL, 2008.

* § The so-called package announced by the Prime Minister for displaced
Kashmiri Hindus is misleading. This package does not address any of the real
problems, short term or long term faced by Kashmiri Hindus.

§ In fact, this package, mischievously projected as an exclusive package for
Kashmiri Hindus, incorporates elements which have nothing to do with
displaced Kashmiri Hindus.

§ The way the package was declared in Akhnoor, caused bad feelings against
Kashmiri Hindus, rather than acting as a balm on their wounds. Wittingly or
unwittingly, the announcement tried to pit the interests of displaced
Kashmiri Hindus against aggrieved and devastated border migrants, PoK
refugees or internally displaced Hindus of Jammu.

§ The so-called package trivializes the wholesale religious cleansing of
Kashmiri Hindus and conveys a spirit of abdication of responsibility by the
government to reverse the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus.
§ By reducing the issue of genocide to merely constructing a shelter in
Kashmir Valley, that too in hostile environs, the UPA government has
displayed lack of vision in confronting the larger challenge of
*Jihadi*terrorism. If having a house in Kashmir was the only problem
for Kashmiri
Hindus then none amongst them would have left Kashmir in 1990. Why did not
even a single Kashmiri Hindu family return to the so-called clusters in
Budgam and Mattan?

§ The real issues linked to the permanent return of the Kashmiri Hindus are
: tackling of all dimensions of terrorism, decommunalisation of the social
milieu in the Valley and creating a viable political and economic
dispensation for Kashmiri Hindus, in order to ensure no future refoulment.

§ The UPA government by announcing this package has demonstrated its
inaptitude and abject failure in comprehending the real challenges to the
return of Kashmiri Hindus. The Government seems to have completely ignored
the concerns and apprehensions, Panun Kashmir raised during the Round Table
Conferences and Working Group meetings.

§ It requires national vision and will to respond to the challenges of
religious cleansing of Hindus living in the only Muslim majority state of
India. Gimmicks like announcing funds for housing societies in the Valley
for Kashmiri Hindus, knowing well that none accepted them during past two
decades, will only complicate the issues. In the prelude to coming elections
in the State and the Centre, Kashmiri Hindus expected those at the helm to
be more clear and forthright in setting an agenda of strategic
reconstruction and nation building in the state.

§ The government has ironically announced availability of funds where there
are no takers. It has desisted from announcing the relief, where it was
required the most. It should have addressed the issues of forcible and
fraudulent grab of Pandit property and shrines, end to the process of
acquiring Pandit property for so-called public utility purposes by the State
government, compensation and release of rental arrears for Hindu houses
occupied by the security forces, waving of loans and income-tax for traders,
comprehensive employement package, passing of the Protection of Shrines and
Temples Bill, etc. etc. It should have considered the primary demand of
setting up a Commission of Inquiry into the core issue of Hindu Exodus and
religious cleansing and fixing the responsibility.

§ The Prime Minister seem to have played into the hands of that section of
political elite of Kashmiri Muslims, which irrespective of party
affiliations, wants the issue of displacement and religions cleansing of
Kashmiri Hindus to be pushed under the carpet. It is this section which has
constantly put obstacles to the permanent return of Kashmiri Hindus and
addressing their grievances.

§ We once again emphatically state that only the creation of Panun Kashmir
Homeland with a union territory status, north and east of river Jhelum in
Kashmir valley, remains the only viable option which can help displaced
Hindus to return to Kashmir valley.
*
(Dr. Agnishekhar) - 09419100035
(Dr.Ajay Chrungoo) - 09419187514
*

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