Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 30: MJR-47, an organisation of displaced persons from Pak occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) has said that the Govt of India has presented the bill in Parliament for reorganisation of the UTJK Assembly. The bill proposing two Assembly seats for Kashmiri migrants and only one seat for refugees/displaced persons from PoJK of 1947 and 1965-’71 is gross and open injustice to DPs.
It said the Bill in present form incurs grave injustice on the big chunk of around 16 lakh population of PoJK DPs and it is against the basic concept of representation to all. “Giving two seats to Kashmiri-migrants (mostly Pandits and negligible Sikhs and Muslims) who had to migrate from turbulent valley but ignoring the rights of PoJK DPs will be grave injustice and open discrimination to most deserving class having 16 lakh population,” it said.
“The PoJK DPs are the first saviours of J&K state, fought the Pak Army / Tribal raiders to defend the State and faced genocide sacrificing more than 40,000 lives , dislocation, struggle, misery etc. for more than seven decades are being ignored. The Govt has wrongly compared the data of two categories i.e. DPs of 1947 and migrants of 1989-90. Migrants’ from 1989-90 registered families are being updated as they are being paid monthly cash doles. Whereas, no register of DPs families has ever been up dated till date. As mentioned in the bill Kashmiri migrants have 46,517 registered families having 1,58,756 persons registered with the Relief Commissioner office.
Where as the govt in a reply in Parliament had given the number as 41,119 Hindu and Sikh families displaced in 1947 who had to leave their home and hearth and migrate from POJK areas under illegal occupation of Pakistan to this side for safety. In addition to this the DPs of 1965-’71 are 10,065 families and that makes total of DPs families as 51,184 families. POJK DPs have been demanding that fresh recount of descedant families of DPs be made but Govt has not done any thing. Since the DPs are in 3rd and 4th generation the number of family units have grown to 10-15 in each family unit of 1947, as is evident from the small relief of Rs 5.5 lakhs disbursed when many families got share of 11,000- 30000 only when divided among the descendant claimant family units. Thus the number of family units must be about 4.5-5 lakhs and population of DPs must be around 15-16 lakhs ( 65% Hindus and 35% Sikhs) living in Jammu province, mostly along IB and LOC.
This provision for two seats for migrants is assumed to be based on displaced 80,000 persons per seat. As such on this analogy the DPs having a populace of 16 lakhs are eligible for about 20 seats. In 2014 , DRPSC on Home Affairs vide its report No. 183 dt. Dec 22, 2014 had clearly recommended to give 8-eight seats to these DPs. Not even a single recommendation of the report has been implemented till date.
“We appeal the Govt to get the bill modified to give at least 12 Assembly seats and provide justice to this big chunk of populace of 16 lakhs POJK DPs,” a spokesman of MJR-47 said.
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