Pandits 'preparing' for mass migration over targeted killing
Srinagar/ Samba: A group of Kashmiri Pandit employees, who were given jobs under a prime minister's package for the community, Wednesday began preparations for "mass migration" out of Kashmir, protesting against a series of targeted killings of non-Muslim employees by terrorists.
The group said they were meeting truck-owners Wednesday to negotiate a rate for transporting their goods.
Hours after a female teacher was shot dead by terrorists in Kulgam district, an organisation of KP employees had threatened to leave the Valley if the government did not relocate them to safer places in 24 hours.
"We have come to fix the rate with truck-owners. Let's see if any decision comes from the government by this evening. If not, then we will migrate from here tomorrow," one of their representatives said here Wednesday.
"We have decided that if the government did not take any concrete step for us within 24 hours, there will be mass migration again," one of the employees said.
He said the target killing of Kashmiri Pandits is continuing and the community is now tired of making appeals with the government.
"We should be relocated so that we can be saved. Our delegation had met the LG earlier and we had asked him to save us. We are asking for temporary relocation for two to three years till the situation in the valley returns to normal. It is the same time frame put by IGP Kashmir for making Kashmir terrorism-free," he added.
Rajni Bala, hailing from Samba district of Jammu, was shot dead by terrorists Tuesday inside the government school in Kulgam where she was posted.
The protesters on Wednesday blocked the Jammu-Pathankot Highway in Samba and demanded dismissal of officers responsible for failing to transfer Bala to a safe place that resulted in her killing. Meanwhile, in Samba a complete shut down to protest against the killing.
Calling the Valley's Hindu population a "soft target", Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina, who visited the bereaved family in Samba and faced protest, said there is an urgent need to formulate a security plan for the safety of the community as Pakistani terrorists were targeting them constantly.
Hundreds of protesters took out a rally toward the Jammu-Pathankot Highway and raised anti-government and anti-Pakistan slogans.
They staged a sit-in on the highway, blocking the vehicular traffic and demanded dismissal of officers, especially that of Kulgam CEO, for turning down repeated requests of the couple and delaying Bala's transfer to Kulgam for months.
The protestors also raised slogans against Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha over the complete failure on the security front to protect the Hindus serving in government offices in the Valley and burnt an effigy of the administration.
The administration led by Deputy commissioner Anuradha reached out to protesters to lift the blockade on the highway, but the agitated protesters continued their demonstration.
Shattered by the death of his wife by terrorists minutes after he dropped her at the school, Raj Kumar had on Tuesday blamed the administration for turning a deaf ear to their repeated requests to transfer her in view of the targeted killings of Hindus in the Union territory.
