Days after Kashmiri Pandits, employed in the Valley on centre’s rehabilitation package, protested to demand transfer of their posts to Jammu after they alleged stone pelting on their transit camps, the police said that “no stone pelting attack” took place during the ongoing unrest on their residences in any district.The Kashmir Pandit employees protested for two weeks in Jammu at relief commissioner’s office and demanded their posting to Jammu region. They alleged that their quarters at Haal (Pulwama), Vessu, Mattan (Anantnag) were attacked by stone pelters.But police said that not a single incident of stone pelting took place on these camps in any district.Deputy Inspector General of Police, South Kashmir range, Ghulam Hassan Bhat , told KNS that no incident of stone pelting on Kashmiri Pandits who are living in residential quarters has taken place in South Kashmir.“In such situations, people generally have apprehensions about their security. So too had Pandits. But people in Kashmir know that Pandits are from our community, and they don’t harass them in such situations,” DIG Bhat told KNS.
SSP Baramulla, Imtiyaz Hussain Mir told KNS that the Pandits who have protested “are lying”. “No stone pelting took place on any residential colony here. They are lying,” Mir said. He added that Baramulla was relatively peaceful in the prevailing situation.SSP Kupwara, Aijaz Ahmad told KNS, “It is not true that youth pelted stones on their residential colony here. They moved to Jammu on their own.”A senior police official in Budgam told KNS that not a single stone was pelted on migrant transit camp for Kashmiri Pandit employees at Sheikhpora.Following their protests, a four member committee led by BJP state president Sat Sharma met them protesting pandits in Jammu to hear their grievances.A four-member committee comprising BJP MLC Ramesh Arora, General Secretary state BJP Narinder Singh, BJP MLC Surinder Ambardar and Chandji Bhat, was formed to look into their problems for redressal.Ramesh Arora, who had met the protesting Pandits, told KNS that the Kashmir Pandits demanded transfer of their posts to Jammu, citing safety issues in the prevailing volatile situation.
“We formed the committee to look into their problems and other grievances. But we have not made any commitment with them for their transfers to Jammu,” Arora told KNS.A senior government official told KNS that transferring their posts to Jammu is “not practically possible”. “This demand is totally unjustified. They can have safety concerns like other people have here in the present situation. But that does not mean, people can shift their places on this reason,” he said.Nearly 1,673 have been employed under Prime Minister’s package for Kashmiri Pandit migrants. And reportedly most of them had moved to Jammu during the ongoing unrest. (KNS)