Pak refugees legitimate residents: Bhim

Srinagar: The chief patron of National Panthers Party (NPP) Prof. Bhim Singh said the 1947 refugees are legitimate, permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir and blamed Parliament of India for the present mess created in respect of the PaK Refugees who, according to him, migrated from Sialkot and adjoining territories included in Pakistan to the side of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 when Jammu and Kashmir was under Monarchy headed by Maharaja Hari Singh.

In a statement, he said: Nearly one lac Pak Refugees stayed in Jammu and Kashmir on the intervention of the then administrator of J&K namely Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah who was appointed as such by the Monarch. Almost each family was allotted land and Sheikh Abdullah appealed to them to stay along the International Border as there were no security and defense measures at the time on the International Border of the state with the newly created Pakistan. Majority of the migrants belong to SC community. Nearly 65000 persons are believed to be residents in J&K mostly in the areas spreading from Kathua to Poonch sector.

He said the Government of India failed to provide them shelter. They were not even compensated as was done in case of PaK refugees in other parts of the country. The Pak Refugees included two former Prime Ministers, Shri Inder Gujral and Dr. Manmohan Singh, adding: That Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly enacted a new Constitution after amending J&K Constitution of 1939.

Singh , who is also a Supreme Court lawyer, said: The Constitution clearly laid down in Section 6 of the Constitution, sub-section (b) that all those persons were entitled to be permanent resident of the state if, having lawfully acquired immobile property in the state, he has been ordinarily resident in the State for not less than ten years prior to the date.

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