After night’s halt, “Refugee Adhikaar Yatra” on its seventh day started from Kaluchak Chowk and went through Samba and Hiranagar constituencies, enroute stopping at Bari Brahmana, Sarore, Jakh, Swankha Morh, Nanpur, Dag, Nanga, Vijaypur, Samba, Raipur Refugee Camp, Baniglad, Kattal Gujran, Chakra, Madeen, Sanji Morh etc. and stopped at Hirangar for overnight. The Yatra is led by BJP State President & MLA Jugal Kishore Sharma and others who are with him are National Executive Member & State Chief Spokesperson Dr. Jitendra Singh, Senior leader Thakur Ranjit Singh (Adv.), State vice-President Chander Prakash Ganga, State General Secretary & Yatra Incharge Rajiv Jasrotia, BJP State Cells Incharge Sat Sharma (C.A), State Spokesperson Sanjiv Sharma, State Publicity Secretary Aseem Gupta, BJYM State President Ravinder Raina, Kashmira Singh, Nand Kishore, Tarseem Lal, Keshav Sharma, Subash Bhagat Ashish Sareen, Vijay Sharma, Ashwani Sharma, Mukesh Padha, Govind Ram Kandley, Kuldeep Kumar, Raj Singh, Pritam Lal and Sandal Singh. Jugal Kishore Sharma, in his address to the party workers and the public said that NC-Congress coalition government has been unconcerned and unmindful of the plight of the resident of border areas as it has been in respect of refugees. He said that the unlucky border people get often caught up in the cross border firing and suffer in every respect, that is body, property and economic loss. They also are forced to abandon their homes and hearths and become temporary refugees. In the past also they have suffered losses on account of not harvesting crops due to firings and also killing of live stock and bodily injuries. Their routine day to day living is uncertain and is subject to the pleasure of the Pakistani authorities as to when they would resort to unprovoked firing. Though the government cannot do much in preventing this firing but it could mitigate the hardship and suffering of the border people if it had same degree of concern for these people as it has exhibited for militants who make the pretensions of settling down to normal life. The BJP demands that the border people be paid compensation for the losses that they have suffered. It shall raise the issue of border people in parliament as well as state assembly and demands that each border resident be given five marla plot at a safer place for residential purposes and also these residents be accorded RBA status for the purposes government jobs reservation etc.
Dr. Jitendra Singh said that people living in this border area are victims of dual hardship. On the one hand they are victims of Pakistan firing, on the other hand they are victims of apathy of the government of India and the state government . He said this is unique example in the history of the world that there is a section of refugee population which has not been granted its citizenship right for the last 66 years. Singh said that the discrimination against West Pak Refugees and PoK refugees by the state government is the result of vote bank politics of Kashmir centric ruling parties. Chander Prakash Ganga said that Samba district has become a district of refugees and homeless border people forced to leave their homes due to Pak firing. Samba district requires special economic package to enable it to withstand the ingress of these unfortunate people. The areas were these luckless people are living require special schemes for drinking water, road connectivity, health-care and education facilities for their children. He added that the BJP will demand special economic package for Samba district.
Thakur Ranjit Singh, while addressing party workers at Hiranagar, said that BJP has been consistently and regularly highlighting the step-motherly treatment being meted out to the people of the Jammu region, be it refugees, border people and general public. The state government has valley centric mindset and no concern for the suffering of the people of other regions. He added that there are number of issues relating to the refugees and border people that need to be addressed by the government. BJP is of the considered opinion that without vigorous and mass based public outpourings, these problems will not be sorted out and hence appeals to the general public to participate in the BJP’s various programmes meant to highlight their problems. Rajiv Jasrotia said that the BJP has always been on front foot to highlight the problems of border people and refugees and our national leadership has been raising these issues continuously in the parliament and the state leader in the assembly but it seems that both the governments are sleeping while helpless people are crying for help.