J&K unrest may hit Centre’s plans

Fresh protests, clashes and stone-throwing battles broke out on the streets of curfew-bound Srinagar, including at Batamallo. (Photo: H.U. Naqash)

The two-week old unrest, perceived by officials as the worst law and order situation in Kashmir in recent times, has paralysed administration in the Valley.

Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti is struggling to overcome the crisis. Her aides are publicly grumbling about her being “betrayed” by some police officers. Not many people seem to be ready to buy this argument and the Opposition parties have rejected it as “lame excuse.”

The mayhem on the streets and its impact have put many government ventures on hold. Among these is the plan to set up separate clusters for displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. The Jammu and Kashmir government had a couple of months ago identified seven places in an equal number of districts of the Valley to set up these clusters and had started work on the ground despite stiff opposition from separatists and even a few mainstream political parties. Some Pandit outfits and activists had also publicly voiced their concern over the preference of the PDP-BJP government as they believed it would only add to the bitterness and widen the gulf between the Valley’s minority and majority populations.

Amid this, key separatist leaders had announced setting up of a committee to hold discussions with Pandit representatives on the issue and asked them why they can’t return to their original places of residence and live side by side with their old Muslim neighbours.

The events of the past fortnight have put the whole process on the backburner. No groundwork is discernible at any of the locations identified for these clusters. The district magistrates concerned had, following a directive issued by the government, identified 90.1775 acres of land at different places in districts of Kupwara, Bandipore, Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Shopian and Pulwama for what the chief minister had while speaking on the floor of the J&K Assembly described as secured “transit colonies’’ for displaced Pandits and other Kashmiris.

Official sources said that the DCs of these districts had started the process of acquiring 41.16 kanals of land at Kharman (Kupwara), 86 kanals at Sarai Dangarpora (Bandipore), 286.01 kanals at Shivpora (Srinagar), 25 kanals at Mattan (Anantnag), 154.09 kanals at Kanispora (Baramulla), 52.04 kanals at Choudhary Gund (Shopian) and 95.12 kanals at Hall (Pulwama) for setting up these clusters. Eight kanals are equal to one acre of land.

A senior official who spoke to this correspondent on condition of anonymity said that the priority of the government at this time is to restore peace and normalcy. “But if you ask me even if we are able to get the Valley back on rails in the next couple of weeks, the government must not talk about these clusters for some time, as given the resentment in the population it could well backfire”.

The official cautioned that those who have opposed the plan may seize any move or even mere talk on the subject to cause turbulence afresh “if at all we have been able to take it out of the present crisis.” There have been stray incidents of stone-pelting on the houses of the minority community at a few places including at transit camp Haal in southern Pulwama district. This was despite J&K Police guarding them. Locals insist these were “isolated incidents” which took place in a highly surcharged atmosphere after the killing of popular militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani and the deaths caused in police firings during resultant protests. They said that even the properties of local Muslims were targeted by irate mobs for their being affiliated with the ruling PDP, besides properties belonging to members of the J&K police. Many Pandits however see in these incidents a ‘warning’ and also “helplessness” of “sensible people” in the majority community and “incapacity” of the administration to ensure their safety. Already, various Pandit organisations are reluctant to accept the separate clusters plan as a viable solution. Some of these have publicly maintained that the plan if implemented on the ground would only widen the gulf between the Pandits and the Valley’s majority Muslim community as many among the latter have already accepted the arraign that these would be like settlements for Jewish Israeli civilian communities built on lands occupied by Israel as “gospel truth.” The Chief Minister sought to remove this fear saying these clusters would actually be “composite transit colonies” and not Israeli type settlements. She said, “These are not going to be any Israel type settlements but transit colonies for the returnees who will stay in these for some time and then decide where to live in the Valley permanently. These will be composite housing colonies where half will be Kashmiri Pandits and half Muslims and other faiths.” Contrastingly, Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, after a recent meeting in Delhi to discuss the issue and also the rehabilitation of erstwhile West Pakistan refugees, said that the government is determined to set up separate colonies for Kashmiri Pandits which would be fully secured for their “safe, honourable and dignified return to the Valley”. He was quoted as saying, “There is no compromise on safe and secure return of the Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley. The Centre with the help of the state government is committed to set up colonies for Kashmiri Pandits. There is no reversal of decision.” Ajay Chrungoo, leader of Panun Kashmir (PK), an outfit of displaced Kashmiri Pandits which demands a separate homeland for the Brahmin Hindus of the Valley known as Pandits, sees the plan as a decision “dangerously bereft of wisdom” and therefore, “unacceptable” to what he said are victims of “religious cleansing and displacement.” He said, “It will not address the issue. The people they wish to bring back to the Valley will not be safe. It would be a tragedy in waiting.” He also said, “People live by their right. They don’t live on goodwill” and questioned the government’s ability to protect the lives and rights of the Pandits in the Valley much less those it wants to settle in the proposed clusters. Asked about a vast majority of Pandits who live in Jammu, Delhi and at other places in the country for the past over two and half decades not wanting to return to the Valley permanently but use the accommodation they will be provided at proposed separate colonies as ‘summer houses,’ he retorted, “They don’t want tourist homes...They can’t accept the status of a tourist.” Elaborating, he said “Kashmir is their home. They are the original natives of the Valley. They want to return home but only if and when they are sure their rights won’t be usurped anymore. That is possible only in a separate homeland we call Panun (own) Kashmir, to be carved out, comprising the regions of the Valley to the East and North of river Jhelum. This would be a sort of union territory where the Constitution of India will be made applicable in letter and spirit in order to ensure right to life, liberty, freedom of expression and faith, equality and rule of law.” Official statistics say that following the outbreak of insurgency most of the Kashmiri Pandit families along with some families of Sikhs and Muslims migrated from Kashmir Valley [total of about 57,000 families] to Jammu, Delhi and other places of the country. At present there are over sixty thousand registered Kashmiri migrant families in the country. About 38,119 registered Kashmiri migrant families are residing in Jammu and 19,338 in Delhi and 1,995 families are settled in other states. The government had recently said on the floor of the Assembly that since 1989, a total of 219 Kashmiri Pandits have been killed. Out of these, at least 129 killings were witnessed between March 1989 and December 31, 1990. Sanjay K. Tickoo, President of Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) which represents a few thousand Pandits who stayed put when majority of the community fled the Valley in 1990, disputes the official figures. He says that as many as 75,343 families (367,289 souls) opted for migration from time to time. “Also, more than 300 Pandits were killed in the first ten months of armed rebellion,” he said. The KPSS had a couple of years ago released a list of 403 people belonging to the minority community which, it said, had been killed by the militants.