Over 64,800 Kashmiri Pandit Families Left Valley In Early 1990s: Centre

Pakistan-sponsored terrorism forced 64,827 Kashmiri Pandit families to leave Kashmir valley in the early 1990s and settle in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country, the government has said.

According to the annual report of the Home Ministry for 2020-21, as many as 14,091 civilians and 5,356 security force personnel lost their lives to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir between the 1990s and 2020.

“Militancy in Jammu and Kashmir is intricately linked with infiltration of terrorists from across the border,” the report said.

Besides Kashmiri Pandits, terrorism forced some Sikh and Muslim families too to migrate from Kashmir valley to Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country, it said.

Nearly 1,054 families from the hilly areas of Jammu migrated to Jammu plains, it said.

As per the records of registration available with the Relief and Migrant Commissioner of Jammu and Kashmir, at present 43,618 registered Kashmiri migrant families are settled in Jammu, 19,338 families are settled in Delhi and National Capital Region, and 1,995 families in a few other states and Union Territories, the report said.

With a view to resettle Kashmiri migrants in the valley, the Home Ministry has approved 3,000 jobs in the Jammu and Kashmir government under the Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Package – 2008, and an additional 3,000 jobs under the Prime Minister’s Development Package – 2015 (PMDP-2015).

To house these 6,000 Kashmiri migrant employees in Kashmir valley, construction of 6,000 transit accommodations at an outlay of ₹ 920 crore has also been approved by the Home Ministry.

Under the scheme, 1,025 flats have been completed or “substantially completed” and 1,488 are under construction.

The report said a total of 2,546 terror attacks sponsored by Pakistan took place in Jammu and Kashmir from 2014 to 2020, in which 481 security personnel were killed in action, and 215 civilians and 1,216 terrorists were killed.

There were 1,776 infiltration attempts from across the border to Jammu and Kashmir between 2014 and 2020, of which 685 were successful.

The annual report said under the PMDP-2015, financial assistance of ₹ 5.50 lakh is also being disbursed to 36,384 families displaced from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK), Chhamb and Niabat and had settled in Jammu and Kashmir.

The central government has approved a similar financial assistance for inclusion of those Displaced Persons (DP) families. Out of the 5,300 DP families of PoJK, 1,947 initially had opted to move outside the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, but later returned and settled there.

A total of ₹ 1,371.13 crore has been disbursed to 31,670 beneficiaries till December 31, 2020.

Financial assistance of ₹ 5.5 lakh per family has also been approved by the government with an outlay of ₹ 317.02 crore for 5,764 families of West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs), who had migrated from several areas of West Pakistan in the aftermath of the partition of 1947 and settled in different parts of the Jammu region, the report said.