M A I N   N E W S

Nadimarg Pandits to leave

Srinagar, March 30
Efforts of the Jammu and Kashmir government to prevent fresh migrations from the Valley received a jolt today when the surviving Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg, where 24 of them had been killed recently, decided to leave the Valley.

The Pandits had decided to leave for Jammu tomorrow, following “pressure” from their relatives who had already migrated, a spokesman of the Pandits told reporters here.

He said, though most of the families were against migration in view of the assurances given by the administration and local Muslims that their security would be better looked after, they had decided to leave after their relatives had persuaded them to do so.

JAMMU: “Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who wished to leave the Valley fearing more Nadimarg-type attacks are being forced to stay back by the Mufti government that has even deployed police to prevent migration,” a forum representing the community said today.

“The Mufti government has forced nearly 10,000 Kashmiri Pundits to stay back in spite of intelligence reports of more such attacks by terrorists,” general secretary of the All-India Kashmiri Pandit Conference (AIKPC), Mr H.L. Chatta, told the PTI here today.

Pandits, who were living in 271 places in the Valley, were unsafe, he said, and the government had deployed police at routes around their villages to prevent them from migrating.

Mr Chatta said there could be serious consequences, if the Pandits were forced to stay back against their wishes.

A Nadimarg survivor, Mr Manohar Nath Pandit, who lost his father, wife, and one son in the massacre, said there was fear among the Pandits, but the government was not allowing them to migrate in spite of their hamlet being still a target of terrorists.

Ten families have already migrated from Nadimarg, Pulwama, Mattan and Karan Nagar areas of the Valley to Jammu after the attack.

“The Pandits have also rejected government’s proposal to house them in two places of pilgrimage, Mattan and Khirbhawani,” he said. PTI

Stay put: APHC
Our Correspondent

Jammu, March 30
The All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leadership has urged the 10,000 Pandits living in 815 areas of the Kashmir Valley to abandon plans of migrating to the plains.

The APHC chairman, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, said: “Pandits are part and parcel of our composite culture. We also request 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits who have migrated to the plains to return to their ancestral villages”.