Kashmir Centre for Social and Developmental Studies (KSCDS) Chairperson Friday strongly condemned the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for ‘maligning and demonising the Kashmirs by distorting facts and their views about Pandits’ return from one part of their state, Jammu to another part in the Valley.“She must apologize to Kashmiris for this vilification but then she owes countless apologies to them and can atone only by resignation and remorse. By deliberately confusing Kashmiri’s’ principled opposition to carving out separate enclaves in Kashmir in the name of pundits with their nonexistent opposition to their dignified return is nothing but an instance of either perceptual blindness or deliberate attempt at obfuscating issues,” KSCDS chairperson Prof Hameeda Nayeem said in a statement to CNS.She said that no Kashmiri from Syed Ali Gillani to a common citizen has ever opposed pundits’ return to the Valley, but have only opposed communal balkanization, the separate enclaves and settlement of non Kashmiris in pandit enclaves by deception and the selective permission of return to one community only.
"This treacherous policy of the state at the behest of central government is definitely dubious and fraught with disastrous consequences for the communal harmony as well as demography of the state because in the name of Pandits we do not know how many non state subjects would be settled as we would have no access to them,” she said.
Hameeda Nayeem said that the passing of resolution for their return is welcome but not in trying to clandestinely making up of enclaves under this garb and even by splattering them with the thin layer of Muslims. “Enclave is an enclave whether you make them up of pundits and Muslims or exclusively for pandits. May we also remind her about other resolutions that the House has passed on autonomy and resettlement and implement them fully before the latest one in their chronological sequence.”"Our stand is crystal clear about it and that is all those people who have been displaced from the valley from 1947 onwards should be facilitated in their dignified return to their own neighborhoods. The Resettlement bill which the same Assembly passed twice is waiting for implementation. The SC to which it has been referred to has no jurisdiction to give a judgment over it as it concerns the resettling of those who have been displaced from their own home. No court on earth can deny them the right to return to their homes as no Kashmiri can deny Pandit brothers and sisters their right to return to their home in the valley. Along with pundits there are those Muslims also who fled the valley in 1990s and have crossed over to Pak administered Kashmir for safety. We can’t allow the privileging of the return of one community to the exclusion of all others who have been displaced at various points of time because of Kashmir dispute. We are inclusive in our approach and that is apparent in our stand. On the one hand, the CM talks of Kashmiriyat- meaning inclusive culture which absorbs all without discrimination which according to her has been discarded by Kashmiris and on the other hand, speaks of the return of only one community and that too in separate enclosures.
Where is her Kashmiriyat then that ignores a community that has been wronged again and again? The attempt at convoluting the issue is nothing but playing cheap deceptive politics by obfuscating perceptions about Kashmir in Jammu. Kashmiris do not need her ‘lectures’ on inclusive culture Theirs is the most cosmopolitan part in Asia as it would attract tourists from across the globe and the soil of Kashmir has always spread her arms and the lap in welcoming them all irrespective of caste , color or creed. If she has any doubt about it, let her check the recent history in which during hartal days Kashmiri muslims not only set up langars to serve food to Yatris but saved many of them when struck by windstorm and vehicular accidents. Let her preserve her lectures for RSS godfathers. (CNS)