Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, July 11: Prof Bhim Singh, supremo of National Panthers Party shot an urgent letter to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on the fraud committed against the Jammu Hindu migrants who have been completely wiped out of NDA budget regarding their rehabilitation.
Prof. Singh has raised this issue with the Prime Minister so that he is adequately informed about the categories of the migrants and the refugees residing in J&K since 1947. In his letter to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Bhim Singh remined Mr Modi that his Government’s budget carried headlines in the daily newspapers that your Government has allotted about Rs.500 crores for the rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandit migrants. This is a great effort and deserves admiration. But we have right to know why Jammu Hindu migrants have been ignored. There is no mentioning even on their existence at all. The budget has talked so much about corporate sector but what happened to the rehabilitation plan other than the Kashmiri Pandit migrants. “You may not have been briefed adequately by your advisers that there are several hundred Kashmiri migrants other than Kashmiri Pandit migrants. They include the Kashmiri Dogra migrants, Kashmiri Punjabi migrants, Kashmiri Rajput migrants, Kashmiri Sikh migrants including Kashmiri Muslim migrants. It is hoped that your Finance Minister shall have relook into the entire situation so that justice shall be done to all the migrants from Jammu and other places,” he added.
Without entering into the merits of Government presented yesterday in the Parliament, I would like to restrict my views on plight of those Jammu Hindu Migrants who were forced out of their homes in 1990/2000 following Kargil war. Prankote (Reasi) massacre of the Hindu residents by the terrorists created such a panic that the people had to flee their homes. The 1998 Prankote massacre of 26 Hindus in the villages of Prankote and Dakikote in Udhampur district (Reasi district at present), J&K on 17th April, 1998. Entire leadership of the country including Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani landed in Prankote by helicopters to condole the inhuman killings of the innocent persons.
The Govt of J&K was reluctant to provide any relief to these migrants for the reasons to be understood by the leadership. The Govt. of India agreed to sanction relief both in cash and kind to these Jammu migrants as well as to the border migrants. The Jammu migrants were discriminated in the sanction of relief. They were given much less relief as compared to the Kashmiri Pandit migrants.
The Jammu migrants (about 2201 families) camping in Talwara, Udhampur and scattered all over Jammu do deserve rehabilitation back in their villages. Their properties and land has to be restored to them and they need to be provided finances to rebuild their houses and raise their cattle which they were forced to leave behind in their villages when they were made to run away by the terror of the militants.
J&K has about 15 lakh of migrants from PoK who came from Mirpur, Kotli, Rawalakote, Muzaffrabad and other places when Pak-sponsored raiders invaded J&K. They call themselves as refugees whereas, in the revenue record they have been registered as migrants. Governments after Government have been promising them comprehensive settlement but that never happened they have remained homeless, source less and penny less till day. There are other refugees of 1965 and 1971 most of them were forced out of their homes from Chhamb area (Jammu Pradesh) when India surrendered Chhamb-Batala to Pakistan in 1965. These Chhamb/Deva-Batala migrants have been living in the shattered camps like the Palestinian refugees living in Gaza strip. They are permanent residents of J&K but have been living as the refugees without any hope for their future survival. The budget remains silent in this regard.
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