Spokesperson: Shri Pawan Khera: He said that we are talking about Kashmiri Pandits. The area like Shopian, where Kashmiri Pandits lived for 32 years, remained there. They refused to leave from Shopian. Today, the situation is that when you and I were lighting diyas with joy on Diwali, there are 15 such families of Kashmiri Pandits, who had to leave their ancestral homes that very night.

I hope that in 1989, when the first exodus of Kashmiri Pandits took place, the Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s government was in force with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party. LK Advani ji was the BJP’s all-in-all at that time, he had given his support and did he withdraw support on this issue - No, he did not withdraw support on this issue.

In 1986, when the first riots took place in Anantnag against Kashmiri Pandits, with Rajiv Gandhi’s government at the Centre, Kashmiri Pandits went on a padyatra from the National Stadium to Rajiv Ji’s office. Rajiv ji listened to them and Ghulam Mohammad Shah’s government was toppled.

Those who talk about zero tolerance, they only use the word ‘zero tolerance’, what is the meaning of zero tolerance was truly shown by Rajiv Gandhi Ji.70 ministers of the Modi government are doing outreach programme starting from 10th of this month, in Kashmir. What is this outreach when you can’t even reach out to the Kashmiri Pandits living in the camps there? After that see this paper (showing the paper), they are threatening Kashmiri Pandit employees that if you do not join, then action will be taken against you.

In our time, during the time of Dr. Manmohan Singh, you know that outside Jagti township, Jammu, there were clusters established to settle Kashmiri Pandits. 4,500 Kashmiri employees were deployed there. The situation had returned to normal. There were no killings. 75 percent of the people took part in the voting. Today, there have been 30 target killings from January to October, this is the situation of Kashmir and you call it normal?

We demand a white paper on the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits. In the last 8 years all that has been done and not done by this government must come out in that white paper. Thursday, October 27, 2022