SRINAGAR: The migrant Kashmiri Pandit employees posted in the Valley under the PM’s job package on Tuesday warned of mass migration if the government failed to relocate them to safer places outside the Valley within 24 hours.
The Pandit employees were protesting in Srinagar after militants on Tuesday shot dead a woman Hindu teacher from Samba district in the school premises at Gopalpora in Kulgam in south Kashmir.
Chanting slogans ‘Only solution relocation’, ‘We want justice’ and ‘Main apne desh mein dandit hu – mein Kashmiri Pandit hu (I am punished in my own country),’ the protesters staged a sit-in outside the Army Cantonment and blocked vehicular movement for over an hour.
The protestors said the target killings were going on unabated.
“These incidents have caused fear psychosis among the Pandit employees posted in the Valley,” he said.
The Pandit employees have been staging protests for over a fortnight in the Valley to press the government to relocate them outside the Valley.
The relocation gained momentum after Rahul Bhat was shot dead by militants inside a tehsil office in Chadoora in central Kashmir’s Budgam district on May 12.
“Our delegation recently met Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and requested him to relocate us to outside Kashmir till the situation improves,” said a protesting employee.
He said if the government failed to act within 24 hours, the community members would migrate en masse.
“Only 1,250 Pandit employee families live in transit camps while 4,000 of us live in rented accommodation. Providing security to all is nearly impossible. The only solution is our mass migration,” he said.
Kashmiri Pandits on protest
The Pandit employees have been staging protests for over a fortnight in various parts of the Valley to press the government to relocate them outside the Valley.
The relocation gained momentum after Rahul Bhat was shot dead by militants inside a tehsil office on May 12.