Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 18: The Kashmiri Pandit Conference (KPC), has urged the Union Government and the Union Territory (UT) administration of Jammu and Kashmir to urgently address and fulfil three critical and long-overdue demands of the community.
In a statement issued here, today KPC president, Kundan Kashmiri said the major three demands included establishment of a Statutory Sansthan Board, akin to the Waqf Board, to manage, restore and protect Hindu religious institutions in Jammu and Kashmir, immediate Passage of the Shrine and Temple Protection and Management Bill in Kashmir and enactment of a Genocide and Rehabilitation Bill to officially recognize the 1990 exodus of Kashmiri Pandits as genocide and ensure justice to the victims by genocide by their honourable and dignified rehabilitation after carving out a separate State for them within Valley of Kashmir.
Kashmiri said that these demands are not merely administrative steps but represent Constitutional, cultural, and human rights imperatives for a community that has faced ethnic cleansing, mass violence, forced migration, and prolonged exile for the past 36 years.
The community, one of the most patriotic, peaceful, and intellectually vibrant communities of India, was systematically targeted and expelled from their ancestors’ land by religious extremism, terrorism and local collusion in 1990. What followed was the desecration of temples, illegal occupation of land, killings of innocents and destruction of their age-old civilizational roots in the Valley.
KPC further stated that in stark contrast to the functioning Waqf Boards across India that manage and protect Muslim religious assets with full legal and political backing, there is still no statutory mechanism to safeguard Hindu temples and shrines in Kashmir, despite repeated appeals. The demand for a Sanatan Board is thus legally justified and Constitutionally essential. It must be fully empowered and tasked with digitizing temple records, protecting assets, and reviving centuries-old religious institutions now lying in ruin or under threat.
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