“Manmohan Singh’s government hyped the return and rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits several times. In 2010, the first lot of the Pandits was given government jobs with the assurance that each beneficiary family would be accommodated suitably. Look at us. Six families were packed in each flat,” said Aparna Pandita, a displaced Pandit woman, recruited as a schoolteacher in the valley’s Budgam district, who was accommodated at a specially created settlement.
Even as Ms. Pandita was the first beneficiary of the Manmohan Singh government’s Rs. 1,618-crore rehabilitation programme for the migrants and most of the colony’s 192 flats were vacant, she was forced to share the premises with three other families. Two of them have been shifted to other places. Still, Ms. Pandita’s accommodation, like scores of others, has two families as tenants. “Isn’t it a grave human rights violation to force a female to share her living place with strangers? Where’s the privacy the Constitution of India guaranteed its citizens?” she asked.
Writ petition Disappointed by politicians and officials, seventeen of the aggrieved families filed a writ petition in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. On April 2 this year, Justice Bansi Lal Bhat directed the State to allot a “full-fledged quarter” to each of the petitioners within a month. However, in the last three months, the order has not been implemented.
Representatives of those rehabilitated told The Hindu that an already depressed community was being subjected to “untold miseries” by successive governments. “It’s cheating,” said Bansi Lal, another teacher. “There’s no sincerity and seriousness in this move. While the politicians compete with one another in making announcements and promises and issuing statements, officials and bureaucrats accommodate their favourites and acquaintances on pick-and-choose basis.” Of the 3,000 specially created job vacancies, nearly 1,500 were filled with recruitment of the migrants who gave a legal undertaking to work in the Valley without seeking transfer to Jammu and other places. Protected tenements were raised at Sheikhpora (Budgam district), Vessu (Kulgam district), Mattan (Anantnag district), Hawl (Pulwama district), Tulmulla (Ganderbal district), Khanpura (Baramulla district) and Drugmulla (Kupwara district).
Last Wednesday, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told the Rajya Sabha that the number of the registered migrant families was 60,452 — 38,119 in Jammu, 19,338 in Delhi and 1,995 in other States. He said 1,474 individuals had been given permanent jobs in the State government. Of them, 1010 families had been accommodated — Vessu (505), Hawl (130), Khanpura (250) and Drugmulla (125).
Move for more settlements Commissioner-Secretary Relief and Rehabilitation Vinod Kaul told The Hindu that efforts were under way to raise more settlements so as to suitably accommodate all those who aspired to return to their lost home and hearth. “We have submitted a comprehensive return and rehabilitation package for the migrants to the tune of Rs. 5,800 crore to the Centre in November 2013. Currently, we have around 1,500 vacancies. We seek to create 3,000 more in the first phase of the fresh initiative,” Mr. Kaul said.
