By IANS,
New Delhi : The central government wants Kashmir Pandits, who left their homes after militancy hit Jammu and Kashmir early 1990s, to return and is in touch with the state government, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Prithviraj Chavan said Saturday.
“We want the state to become fully normal like earlier days. We are in touch with the state government on this issue,” Chavan told reporters in reply to a question.
He said the state government will bring in a proposal in this regard and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will take it forward. Most of the promises made by the first UPA government have been fulfilled, he added.
A group of Kashmir Pandits “living in exile” in Delhi met National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan earlier this month and apprised him of their plight “away from homeland” earlier this month.
“We had apprised him of our plight and are most likely to meet him again in some time in October,” Kamal Kak, spokesman of a Kashmir Pandit association, told IANS.
On Sep 14, 1989, militants killed a Kashmiri Pandit in the heart of Srinagar. “This sowed the seeds of our eviction from our homeland,” he said adding that around 80,000 Kashmir Pandits are “living in exile in Delhi and its suburbs.