Staffer Pandits to be shifted to safer places in Valley by June 6
SRINAGAR: A day after angry Kashmiri Pandits posted in the Valley threatened mass-migration while setting a 24-hour deadline for their transfer out of Kashmir following the targeted terror attack on a Hindu school teacher, the administration sought to take the middle road by shifting them to secure locations at district/tehsil headquarters within the Valley itself.
An estimated 6,000 Hindu beneficiaries of the PM’s job scheme posted in the Valley as well as Jammu-based minority employees posted in militancy-hit Kashmir will get fresh posting orders in less than a week — by next Monday, June 6.
Official sources said J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday chaired a high level security meeting to discuss the targeted killings of seven persons last month, including a Kashmiri Pandit, the Hindu teacher and three policemen.
With elections in the Union Territory around the corner, it would be naive to expect the frequency of terror attacks to come down anytime soon. Kashmiri Pandit beneficiaries of the PM’s job scheme in the Valley and employees from the minority communities from Jammu posted in Kashmir are particularly vulnerable to the terror attacks.
“These employees will be posted in the district and tehsil headquarters, where the security apparatus normally remains tight. They will get government accommodation. The process of posting them in safer locations in the Valley will be completed by June 6,” sources said. It will ensure that no Pandit or any other member of the minorities is posted in far off, remote or isolated places.
The security apparatus around all transit accommodations for migrant Kashmiri Pandit employees in the Valley will be beefed up and additional security personnel deployed in these areas for day and night patrolling.
Parallelly, the General Administration Department has set up a dedicated cell for attending to and resolving grievances of employees of minority communities in Kashmir. “They can register their complaints on jk.minoritycell@gmail.com or call 0194-2506111 and 0194-2506112 from 10 am to 5.30 pm,” an administration spokesman said. Meanwhile, terrorists in the evening shot at and injured a civilian.
Amit Shah to review security
Union home minister Amit Shah will on Friday convene a meet to discuss J&K security, the second such exercise in less than a fortnight in the wake of targeted terror attacks in the Valley.