Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, June 12: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said that Kashmir is incomplete without Pandits and there is a need to instill confidence among them for their permanent return to the Valley.
Mehbooba, while speaking to reporters after paying obeisance at Mata Kheer Bhawani in Central Kashmir district of Ganderbal this morning, said the present situation is not such that Kashmiri Pandits could live in their native places and there is a need to infuse confidence among the community before they could go back there. “To infuse confidence among them, first they will be brought to transit camps, transit communities, where our Muslim migrants will also live with them. Once their confidence grows, then they can live wherever they want,” she said.
The Chief Minister appealed Pandits to pray for the peace. “I will only appeal to Kashmiri Pandits that they should trust us and pray. We are trying to create peace here, Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits,” she said.
Giving details of the last night’s stone pelting incident in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district where a police post was pelted with stones and a vehicle carrying Kashmiri Pandits for the festival at Kheer Bhawani temple got caught in it, Mehbooba said: “While some 80 vehicles carrying pilgrims had already passed through the area, unfortunately one vehicle crossed over the same time when some miscreants were pelting stones at newly established police post at Wanpoh,” she said and added that two devotees had suffered minor injuries in the incident and both of them have now reached the Kheer Bhawani temple to join the festivities.
Mehbooba said the situation is not such that Pandits could live in their native places. “Whoever is saying this, be it National Conference, Congress or other parties, they should think if the situation is such right now can Kashmiri Pandits live there after yesterday’s incident,” she asked.
Mehbooba said children belonging to poor families are being used by some people in Kashmir for stone pelting and it is time for the people of Kashmir to ponder upon that. “There are some elements in Kashmir who are anti-social and are using poor people for stone-pelting. The poor children they are using will face stigma from society forever,” she said. She said they will be called stone pelters even if they got educated and achieve something in life.
Strongly condemning the incident, the Chief Minister said that such mindless acts of stone-pelting and other forms of violence only bring miseries to the people and bad name to Kashmir, with tourism sector being the first casualty. “While most of the young boys and girls from Kashmir including the wards of Kashmiri Pandits are toiling in various States amidst extreme hot weather conditions to make their careers, unfortunately certain vested interests in Kashmir are hell bent on ruining the lives and careers of young boys, especially from underprivileged sections of the society, by misusing them as stone-pelters,” she said.
Mehbooba urged such quarters to desist from exploiting these poor boys for furthering their vested political interests. “If these quarters are the well-wishers of Kashmiris, they must instead help these disadvantaged youth in their studies and in making their careers as they are doing for their own children,” she said.
She expressed satisfaction over a large number of devotees visiting the Kheer Bhawani temple this year. “I feel that by coming here in such large numbers and meeting people here, the confidence will increase and slowly a time will come that these people will return to live here,” she said.
Invoking the ethos of ‘Kashmiriyat’, Mehbooba also praised local Muslims for participating in the festival at the temple, which is thronged by Kashmiri Pandits.
Earlier, Chief Minister visited the shrine to offer personal felicitations to the Kashmiri Pandit devotees who had arrived at the shrine in large numbers to participate in the annual Mela. She was accompanied by Advisor to Chief Minister, Prof Amitabh Mattoo, Legislators, Ishfaq Jabbar and Yasir Reshi and former Minister, Qazi Mohammad Afzal.
Mehbooba interacted with the devotees, who had arrived in thousands from within and outside the State for the special occasion, and also inquired about the facilities being provided to them. She urged the devotees at the shrine to pray for peace and prosperity of the State so that it once again flourishes as a symbol of traditional harmony and brotherhood, which it used to be before the eruption of turmoil.
Chief Minister said the occasions like Mela Kheer Bhawani offer a great opportunity to bring the Kashmiri Muslims and migrant Pandits together to build new bonds of mutual trust and brotherhood, which would in the long run facilitate the return and the rehabilitation of the migrants back in Kashmir.
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