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Pallone tells India, Pak to protect Kashmiri Pandits

Pallone tells India, Pak to protect Kashmiri Pandits

Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: December 6, 2000

A leading Congressman who has been championing the cause of Kashmiri Pandits has called on both India and Pakistan to protect the minority Hindu community in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir from continuing assaults.

Expressing his satisfaction with Pakistan's response to India's month-long cease-fire in Jammu and Kashmir during the Muslim fasting month of Ramzan, Congressman Frank Pallone, former co-chairman of the India Caucus, told Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, in a letter that her government should accept India's cease-fire call.

In another letter to Lodhi, Pallone praised Pakistan Foreign Secretary Inamul Haque's weekend announcement that Pakistani troops deployed along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir "will observe maximum restraint."

Pallone said Pakistan's actions, along with the willingness of the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), the umbrella organization of Kashmiri separatist groups, to hold talks with India, were positive signs for peace in Kashmir, but warned that there could be no peace till Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir continued to be victims of violence by secessionist groups.

"It's a sad commentary that in the middle of what could be positive developments for the future of Kashmir, the Hindus and Sikhs continue to fall victims to violence.  I call upon both governments to implement measures that will contain the violence against these minority groups in Kashmir," Pallone wrote in his letters to Lodhi and Naresh Chandra, India's envoy in Washington.

Pallone noted in particular the attack on December 1 on four sleeping Hindu children between the ages of three and 15 years, who were shot and killed in a remote mountain village in Jammu and Kashmir.

"This is the third attack on Kashmiri Pandits in less than a week since India declared a cease-fire.  Now that Pakistan has agreed to the cease-fire and the All-Party Hurriyat Conference may hold talks with India, these attacks should cease.  Otherwise, no one will believe that Kashmir holds any future for religious toleration," Pallone said.

Pallone praised Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for sticking with the Ramzan cease-fire despite pressures at home.  "The prime minister is to be commended for unilaterally declaring the cease-fire, and sticking with it even after militants tried to stop it with their violent acts, and domestic opponents criticized his actions," he said.

"The prime minister has told me many times that he cares for the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, and understands that there will never be peace in Kashmir unless they can live in their homes without fear.  I ask once again that any peace talks with the Kashmiri separatist groups or eventually with Pakistan, reference the status of the Pandits and their security," he said.

The Indo-American Kashmir Forum (IAKF), the premier lobbying group in the U.S.  on behalf of the Pandits, was far less sanguine than Pallone and said Vajpayee's unilateral cease-fire was an exercise in appeasement to the militant groups.

"The Indian prime minister's announcement of an unilateral cease-fire in Kashmir during Ramzan appears to be a reconciliatory gesture towards Muslim militants," Vijay Sazawal, the international coordinator for IAKF, told India Abroad News Service.

"The Indian government, however, is ill-advised seeking a political dialogue with only Kashmir Muslims, while ignoring that Kashmir Pandits too are suffering and need to be part of the same political process," he warned.

Sazawal also complained that New Delhi's continuing emphasis on seeking a settlement with perpetuators of terrorism and mayhem in Kashmir, while ignoring the needs and demands of the victims of terrorism, was unfortunate and unwise.

"We must again emphasize that no political settlement is possible without bringing all ethnic communities within Jammu and Kashmir to the negotiating table, and it is these communities that will eventually dictate the future political outlook of the state," he said.  (India Abroad News Service)
 


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