Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 5: The Confederation of All PoJK Refugees’ Organizations today demanded that 10-12 Assembly seats be reserved for PoJK refugees in J&K State Assembly.
The demand was raised by the Confederation leaders while addressing a press conference, here today as a special parliamentary session is underway and it is understood that the bill for constitution of Assembly for UT J&K including proposing two Assembly seats for Kashmiri Migrants and one seat for DPs from PoJK of 1947, 1965 and 1971 by nomination will also be taken up in ensuing session.
The Confederation leaders said that the PoJK DPs are the first saviors of J&K state as they fought the Pak Army/Tribal raiders to defend the State and faced genocide sacrificing more than 40,000 lives, dislocation, struggle, misery etc. but despite that they are being ignored for more than seven decades. They said that during the 1971-Indo-Pak war, Government of India handed over some areas to Pakistan for strategic reasons and thousands of the residents were displaced from their homes and hearth.
“These DPs with a populace of around 16 lakhs (65% Hindus and 35% Sikhs) are living in Jammu province mostly on the IB and LoC all along Indo-Pak border from Poonch to Kathua districts, and have been suffering from the off and on cross-border-firing and violations of cease fire all these years resulting in loss of humans as well as cattle and damage to property,” they added.
They said that the Kashmiri Migrants have been allowed 2-assembly seats for mere 1,58,000 souls only on the analogy of dislocation though their constituency segments are very much in India, as such not giving 10-12 seats for more than 16-lakh souls of PoJK DPs will only go against justice and the spirit of our constitution and equality,” they asserted and strongly demanded that the bill be modified to meet the rightful and justified aspiration of DPs of 1947, ’65 and ’71 from PoJK and Chhamb.
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