JAMMU: A Kashmiri pandits' body today demanded setting up of a crimes tribunal to probe the alleged excesses committed against the community during the last three decades. "We demand that a full-fledged crimes tribunal be constituted in Jammu and Kashmir to go into the excesses committed against the Kashmiri pandit community during the last three decades," president, Panun Kashmir, an organisation of displaced Kashmiri pandits, Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo told reporters here. He said the "NHRC decision", observations made by the courts and other accredited human rights bodies in context of the "pandit mass exodus" in Kashmir should form the basis of the judicial review of the crimes committed against the community.
All hate crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing should also be duly brought before the crimes tribunal, Chrungoo said, adding Panun Kashmir should be made a party to the official complaint to the tribunal and a senior Supreme Court judge be appointed its chairman.
He said those responsible for the "heinous crimes" against pandits and other minority community members should be brought to justice under the purview of the crimes tribunal "to ensure that the ethnically cleansed community is provided justice".