The President of Indian National Congress Chapter in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Ahmad Mir has said the ground situation in the territory is bad, asserting that fear among the Pandit community members has lifted the veil on the Narendra Modi led Indian government’s normalcy claims.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, speaking to reporters at Sheikhpora in Budgam said, “We all feel that the ground situation is bad, the law and order (situation) is bad. The J-K government as well as the (Indian) Home Ministry has been making statements that the state [IIOJK] has headed towards normalcy and development in the past about two years”.
But, he said, the apprehensions of Kashmiri Pandits have also lifted the veil on those claims, adding they are demanding relocation to secure places, which means there is insecurity in Kashmir. Ghulam Ahmad Mir had led a delegation that visited the protesting Kashmiri Pandit employees at Sheikhpora in Budgam. The protesting Pandit employees have been demanding their relocation to safer places in view of the recent killing of their colleague Rahul Bhat.
He said in the last about a year, targeted killings of minority Pandit community members have taken place even inside schools and government offices. “If this is (Indian Prime Minister) Modi’s Naya Kashmir, then let him have it. We then want the same old Kashmir where there was brotherhood, in which we used to live safely”, he said.
Separately, talking to reporters at Vessu Pandit colony in Islamabad district, Mir said that the BJP used Kashmiri pandits for political gains at every stage but failed them when it came to their safety and security. He said that Modi never redressed the grievances of Kashmiri Pandits, be it Indian PM package employees, Pandits living in Indian states or non-migrants.
He said that the claims of normalcy by the BJP have suffered a total puncture. “When we were saying that people were not feeling secure they were taking it in a negative sense. But now the target killings of minorities are removing the curtain from everything,” he said. Minorities in the Kashmir valley, he said, are feeling so much insecure that their only slogan from Shiekhpora to Vessu to Mattan is that they should be relocated to safer places.—KMS
