Author: Peerzada Arshad Hamid
Publication: Tehelka
Date: December 22, 2007
URL: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=Ne221207Homecoming.asp
Introduction: Two Pandit families return to
the Valley to find their homes taken over by security forces and their land
grabbed by locals. The government has offered little help.
WHEN KASHMIRI Pandits started to flee the
Valley following the outbreak of insurgency in the late 1980s, the hope of
returning to their ancestral homes kept them from selling off their properties.
It will soon be two decades since they were forced to leave their homeland
but the Jammu and Kashmir government's repeated promises of ensuring their
return have turned out to be nothing more than rhetoric.
Notwithstanding the lack of government support,
a couple of Kashmiri Pandit families decided to brave their way back to their
homes in Bandipore. They found their houses under the occupation of Central
Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. One family had to take refuge in a
Muslim neighbour's house.
It's a similar story elsewhere. Houses abandoned
by Pandit families in the Valley have either been occupied by troops or have
fallen into ruin under the wild outgrowth of sycamore trees. Houses in the
possession of the security forces resemble fortresses, surrounded by piles
of sand bags and spirals of razor wire. Raj Nath Bhatt returned to Kharpora
village after spending 17 years in migrant camps in Jammu only to find that
his home had been turned into a CRPF garrison. Moreover, some people had used
forged documents to get part of his farmlands allotted to them. "I had
spent a miserable life in exile," Bhatt says. "The urge to return
home was eating me away, but now that I am here, I have to fight for my own
property. I am at the very end of my days and I have come home to die in peace.
Do you think I have the strength for a fight?"
Bhatt still remembers the night when he left
the Valley with his wife, son and daughter-inlaw, leaving behind two houses
and 35 kanals of apple orchards and paddy fields. "We were scared and
we took the decision in haste. Everything was intact then, but today I am
an alien in my own land," he says. Bhatt also owned a house in the nearby
Arin village. In his absence, the building was demolished by a man who later
got the land transferred to himself. Bhatt says officials of the revenue department
assisted in transferring his land illegally.
Bhatt and his son Rakesh have approached the
district administration to get their land and houses back, but to no avail.
The family has even filed a petition with the state financial commissioner
(revenue) but has not got any relief apart from a notice directing the tehsildar
of Bandipore to furnish details.
"The officials don't bother. The tehsildar
does not obey the financial commissioner's order. I have realised that the
government's tall claims of having guarded migrants' property and having brought
back the Pandit community are just a sham," says Rakesh.
BANDIPORE DEPUTY Commissioner Sheikh Mushtaq
(deputy commissioners are the nominated custodians of migrant property in
the Valley) told TEHELKA that migrant families were entitled to rent from
the State if their houses were under CRPF possession. However, in cases of
land grabbing, the family needs to approach other fora. "After the Pandits
migrated from the Valley, their houses were taken over by the BSF and other
paramilitary forces. An assessment has been made for providing them the rent
due them and we are looking into the options. As far as allegations regarding
land grabbing are concerned, the complainants can go to a court of law,"
Mushtaq said.
The shattered Bhatts are now living in the
house of Rakesh's childhood friend, Ghulam Rasool Mir. "If I don't help
my friend in this difficult time, who else will?" smiles Mir. "The
government should rise above political considerations and make every effort
to resettle the Kashmiri Pandits." Rakesh now teaches at a private education
institute in Bandipore to support himself and his family. He says his family
could never adjust to life in Jammu and always longed to return. His mother
is a chronic invalid and is not expected to live long. "But she is happy
to die here," Rakesh says.
SOM NATH'S family, like the Bhatts, returned
to their native village of Kaloosa in Bandipore but have been living in a
rented house ever since. Their house is under the CRPF's possession.
Bandipore MLA Usman Majid told TEHELKA it
was disgusting that the administration was not serious about the return of
Kashmiri Pandits. "It's true that their properties have been grabbed
and their houses occupied by CRPF personnel. It is really unfortunate that
we are discouraging the Pandits from returning. I fail to understand why the
government is not taking measures for their resettlement in their own houses,"
Majid said.
The MLA said he will raise this issue in the
coming Assembly session and will also write to the Central government. The
PDP-Congress coalition government in its Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of
2002 had promised that the government would strive for the return of Kashmiri
Pandits to their motherland as it considers them to be an essential part of
Kashmiriyat.
The state government has constructed residential
buildings for returning Hindu Pandit families in Mattan town of Anantnag and
Sheikhpora town of Budgam district on the outskirts of Srinagar at a cost
of around Rs 25 crore. However, the government says that Kashmiri Pandits
themselves are wary of moving into these flats as it would create a division
between Pandits who remained in the Valley and those who are now returning.
Pandits who didn't leave the Valley understandably wish to be rehabilitated
in their own homes rather than be moved to protected accommodations.
Nevertheless, the travails that have met the
two Pandit families on their return to Bandipore establish that Kashmiri Pandits
are not welcome to return the Valley. Not yet.
