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| Refugees may be on the warpath | | Conspiracy in Kashmir | |
Neha
Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 14: The opposition by almost all those who matter in Kashmir to the democratic suggestion of the joint parliamentary committee of the Union Home Ministry that the refugees from West Pakistan needed to be granted all citizenship rights has angered not only the concerned refugees but the entire non-Muslim population in Jammu province. What has created a serious situation in the Jammu province, which houses all these refugees, is the outrageous assertion in the Valley that the grant of citizenship rights to these refugees will change the demography of the state, help the RSS and its affiliates to Hinduize Kashmir by settling there non-Muslims and increase Jammu's representation in the assembly. The people of Jammu province have condemned those in the Valley who have been opposing the noble suggestion of the joint parliamentary committee. Some of them have even threatened a direction action in case the communal elements failed to see the reason.
Refugee leader and president of West Pakistan Refugees Action Committee (WPRAC) Labba Ram Gandhi, for example, has accused Syed Ali Shah Geelani, NC leader Ali Mohammad Sagar and MLA Langate Engineer Rashid of speaking the Pakistani language and claimed, and very rightly, that "when West Pakistani refugees were heading towards Punjab, it was NC leader late Sheikh Mohd Abdullah who had stopped them at Lakhanpur and assured them to provide land and citizenship rights and ultimately they were asked to settle along the border belt of Jammu, Samba and Kathua, but unfortunately party leaders including Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and people like Sagar and others were against this move".
Labha Ram Gandhi bemoaned, and for right reasons, that as many as 25,460 families of West Pakistani refugees living in Jammu region have the right to vote in Lok Sabha elections but they have no right to vote in Assembly elections or the local bodies' elections even after 67 years of their stay in Jammu. "Had they been allowed to go to other parts of the country to settle down, they would have received all the rights. They can not purchase even property here. Even today a baby is born in our family, he is considered Pakistani while in country like USA or Canada anybody can be permanent citizen after 3 or 5 years," he was quoted as saying while taking on the anti-refugee forces in the Valley.
"They are nobody to decide the fate of over 15 lakh refugees, including the refugees from POJK. With merely 1.50 lakh WPRs, already living here for the last six decades, no demography is going to be changed. NC leaders and others are just exploiting people of Kashmir. They have no mass base and people have already rejected them. They are communal and stood exposed before the public. The refugees would resort to direct action and target such people if they dare to play with their sentiments and provoked them for their vested interests," he has further said. In addition, he has appealed all the refugee groups and organizations to come on one platform and launch united struggle and ban the entry of such anti-refugee Kashmiris in Jammu in the future.
It is not just the WPRAC which has condemned the anti-refugee forces in the Valley. The BJP, some Jammu-based Congress leaders like Raman Bhalla, Sham Lal Sharma and Manjit Singh and a number of social and political groups have also condemned the anti-refugee forces, saying that the whole issue is of humanitarian nature and they would continue to fight for their rights.
The situation as it has been developing in Jammu province could culminate in a serious law and order problem. It is time for the Governor's administration to act before it is too late. The best thing for it to do would be to rein in the anti-refugee forces in the Valley. Similarly, New Delhi must intervene at the earliest and accept the recommendations of the joint parliamentary committee in full. These refugees have already suffered a lot and it is obvious that their patience is running out and running out very fast. |
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