US Congressman is voice of Kashmiri pandits

SRINAGAR: Seventeen years after their forced migration, Kashmiri pandits have now found a new voice in US Congressman Frank Pallone. Pallone has written to prime minister Manmohan Singh urging him to facilitate the return of Kashmiri pandits by encouraging them to expand their land holdings in the valley.

“Most unfortunate is that not much help has been provided to the pandits who stayed back by the state government or the civil society,” Pallone wrote.

In fact, “the state government could facilitate the return of the pandits, by encouraging them to buy land in the valley through attractive financing,” he wrote.

The letter comes at a time when the J&K government has announced a ban on the sale of properties of pandits. This followed reports of Kashmiri pandits struggling hard to save their temples and shrines from being sold by unscrupulous non-Kashmiri caretaker priests.

“The mafia is pressuring the government to delay the bill banning the sale of temples and other properties of the pandits,” said Sanjay Kumar Tickoo, president, Kashmir Pandit Sangarash Samiti, a body of Kashmiri pandits who did not migrate from the valley in 1990.

According to the Samiti’s figures, property worth Rs250 crore has either been sold or transferred by these unscrupulous elements in Kashmir.

The KPSS has threatened a hunger strike if the government fails to introduce the bill in the state assembly.

h_ishfaq@dnaindia.net