Excelsior Correspondent
RAJOURI, Apr 27: Pahari community held a convention at Nowshera and highlighted the demand of ST status besides strongly criticizing some Gujjar leaders who were opposing the same to the Paharis
The convention was organized by Doulat Ram and presided over by R S Mala, spokesman JKPPM.
Those who spokes on the occasion, included Vinod Kumar, Rajiv Kumar, Balbir Sharma, Chamial Singh, Naresh Kumar and others, who stressed upon ruling coalition partners to grant ST status to Pahari community without any further delay.
Taking strong note of the opposition of Gujjars to Schedule Tribe status for Paharies, Jammu & Kashmir Youth Pahari People Movement leader, Amir Qureshi and Karan Kumar said that ST status is the basic right of Paharies and if the opposition from Gujjars continues, they will launch a movement for scraping this status from Gujjars also.
Speaking on the occasion, Shahbaz Khan, chief executive JKPPM, said that State Cabinet in 1989, vide Cabinet decision number 159 , had recommended the Centre Government for granting ST status to 7 tribes, including Paharies and Pahari community was at number one at that time. “Six tribes have been given the status bus Paharies are waiting for the same for last 20 years. We are just demanding our right and we have nothing to do with Gujjars. We are demanding the status from Government not from Gujjars and they should not react in this way”, he added. Saying that the case of Paharies is strong, Khan said that State Assembly had already passed a resolution for granting ST status to them.
President of Pahari Student Union, Ab Qadir Khan, Sayeed Mughal, Susheel Kumar, Amir Qureshi, R S Malla. Aijaz Khan, Javed Mughal, Shieraz Shaikh, Ashwani Sharma, Riaz Ahmed, M M Qureshi, Adv Rajinder Singh and Madhur Gupta also spoke on the occasion.
Follow our WhatsApp channel