Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 18: The J&K Gujjar and Bakerwal Youth Welfare Conference (JKGBYWC) today staged a protest against the proposed move of the Government to include non-tribal in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category while impressing that the process will affect them hugely.
Addressing media persons, Zahid Parwaz Chowdhary State President of JKGBYWC said that they are not going to accept the proposed changes, which he termed as “encroachment” of the ST category.
“There are 30 lakh Gujjar and Bakerwal and out of that, 10 lakh still do not have houses to live and on top of it, the Govt is set to include those who do not belong to our category,” he said.
The protestors said that the policies of the BJP have failed in J&K and as a result, they took along a particular community and told them that they will be given the reservation in ST.
“With 40 lakh already there, how is the inclusion of more going to be beneficial for us,” the protestors said, adding that they also demand implementation of FRA restoration of reservation in promotion.
“We will not accept the entry of non-tribal in our category at any cost. This is a symbolic protest that we carried out today, but we will go to every part and we will make sure that people are made aware of the proposed changes in the reservation,” Chowdhary said, adding BJP was playing with fire by resorting to such moves.
The protestors also demanded PSP benefits and said that the same needs to be extended to other areas as well. “PSP benefits are being given to people in Rajouri, Poonch, Karnah and Uri; we demand that the same should be extended to Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban Reasi and those areas of Kashmir where tribal people live.”
The protestors under the banner of JKGBYWC said that they do not want the political reservation; rather, they said, the Govt needs to rethink the proposed move of including non-tribal. “We have not been given political reservation in the last 30 years, we still don’t want it,” they said.
The protestors, while terming the inclusion of well-off people sheer injustice, said that they will go village to village to aware people. “We can go to any extent to fight for our rights,” the protestors said.
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