[Reader-list] Pandits want 1,600 crores in Delhi even after rehabilitation; what's left in the Valley?

[Nitesh Bhatnagar]

Government can't force Pandits to return: KSD

ROCKEY PANDITA, 28 April 2008, Monday
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=133162


In an emergency meeting of the Kashmir Samiti Delhi, the samiti has
announced that it's quite apprehensive of the scheme of the Prime
Minister to spend Rs 1,600 crores for the return of the Kashmiri
Pandits to the valley.


AN EMERGENCY meeting was held by the Kashmir Samiti Delhi (KSD), the
nodal agency of Kashmiri Pandits on April 26 at Delhi, which was
attended by almost all the executives members under the president ship
of Dr LN Dhar.

"In the  meeting, Kashmiri Samiti Delhi has accorded a conditional
welcome to the announcement made by Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh
that Rs 1,600 crores would be spent for the  return of the Kashmiri
Pandits to the valley, but  the Kashmiri Samiti Delhi expressed
apprehension that the scheme, in its present form, will not bring in
the desired results," stated in a press release.

The press release further stated that the executive council has said
that the economic package has been a long-standing demand of the
Kashmir Samiti as lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits have suffered because of
the exodus from the Valley, but  it is unfortunate that the package
announced is based on the condition of the return of the Pandits to
the valley.

Dhar said that "the stand of the samiti, in this regard, has been
clear throughout and that the return can be possible only when the
Kashmir issue is permanently resolved. Till then the community members
need to be rehabilitated at their present places of stay and the
benefit of the package announced by the Prime Minister be given to the
displaced persons, irrespective of their places of living."

He further added that the government has no authority to force the
community to go back to the valley, in the present circumstances, and
it cannot stop the benefits on this ground.

"We don't feel the situation is such that the KPs can return to the
valley and can live a free life there. It is ironic, in such
circumstances, to ask the Kashmiri Pandits to return by providing them
the present package," said one of the executive of the Kashmiri Samiti
Delhi.