SRINAGAR: Chairman of Hurriyat Conference G Syed Ali Geelani Wednesday alleged that government of India was hatching a plan to change the demography of the Jammu and Kashmir by pushing non-state subjects and the refugees of 1961 and 1971 into Jammu and issuing them Permanent Resident Certificates.
Geelani also threatened mass agitation if the government went ahead with the covert plans of carving separate homelands for Kashmiri pandits, though he welcomed the peaceful return and socio-cultural rehabilitation of the Kashmiri speaking pandits who left Valley soon after the outbreak of armed uprising in 1989. Equating the resettlement of refugees in Jammu and rehabilitation of Pandits in ghettos with Israel’s settlement forays into Palestine, Geelani said that the pro-Indian mainstream parties were actually aiding such covert official moves.
He said it was alarming that the population of Jammu had been shown more than Srinagar city. India with the help of its paid agents in Jammu and Kashmir has succeeded in changing the demographic nature of the State and I warn people that if they acted as mute spectator they will certainly lose their identity one day, Geelani said adding that in a planned manner Kashmiri people were being subjugated in one way or the other. He said that government of India must settle all the refugees presently residing in Jammu and other parts of India. Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory and government should stop issuing permanent resident certificates to the non-state subjects, he said.
While welcoming the return of exiled Kashmiri speaking Hindus (Pandits), Geelani said the government should not encourage the idea of carving out separate “homelands” out of Kashmir. He threatened to launch a campaign against the creation of a separate homeland for the Kashmiri Pandit community in the Valley. He warned that such settlements can create an Israel-Palestine type situation in Kashmir and will be an attempt to give communal colour to our freedom movement.
Geelani, however, insisted that he was not against the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits and would support every measure to settle the community back in Valley. We want them to return and live with their Muslim brethren in their old neighborhoods, Geelani said. He warned that if the government went ahead with the plan to create separate settlements for Kashmiri Pandits he will lead a mass resistance to it. He appealed to the community not to fall prey to the designs of Government of India” and said that Kashmiri Pandits were part and parcel of Kashmir’s cultural and ethnic identity.
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