Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 23, 2004
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=41678
Jammu and Kashmir CM Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed's efforts to get Kashmir Pandits to return to the Valley have hit
a roadblock, with prominent community leaders boycotting a Shivratri milan
hosted by the CM in Delhi last evening.
The CM has been under pressure to
withdraw the controversial order directing Kashmiri Pandits, who had fled
the Valley in the wake of insurgency, to come back to Kashmir. However,
he is unlikely to withdraw the order.
Talking to The Indian Express, Mufti
said that it (the direction to KPs to return to the Valley) ''was a Cabinet
decision and not my personal decision which I can change now''.
Kashmiri Pandits have alleged that
the move is only ''aimed at making them scapegoats to fulfill the personal
and political ambitions of leaders like Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.'' Sunil
Shakdhar, president of the Kashmiri Samiti, conveyed to the Chief Minister
the community's decision to boycott his dinner as soon as Mufti landed
in Delhi for the occasion.
''We had received 120 invitation
cards from the J-K government but none of us attended the dinner,'' Shakdhar
said. Yesterday's dinner, the second hosted by Mufti for Kashmiri Pandits
in the Capital, was attended by mediapersons, government officials, and
a few socialites.
And as if the boycott was not enough,
Shakdhar claimed that alliance partners in the state government, the PDP
and the Congress, differed on the issue of the return of Kashmiri Pandits.
He flaunted a letter apparently
written by J-K Deputy Chief Minister and Congress leader Mangat Ram Sharma
to attest his claim.
Sharma had apparently written a
letter to the Samiti, saying he had directed the authorities not to execute
the government order. He was at the time acting CM as Mufti was away to
Mecca on a Haj pilgrimage.
