Kashmiri pandits reject rehabilitation package

The rehabilitation package worked out by a Jammu and Kashmir government sub-committee to encourage Kashmiri pandits to return to the valley is a ''dangerous trap''.

Expressing this view on Saturday, the Panun Kashmir Movement, an organisation representing pandits, said, ''The sub-committee's approach is incomprehensible and inadequate.''

The recommendation that refugee camps should be created in the valley for the pandits is nothing but an attempt to bring the ''vulnerable sections'' of the community within easy reach of terrorists, the statement said.

It said a ''sinister plan'' was being unfolded to make Kashmir and Kashmiri pandits ''irrelevant and redundant''.

Reacting to the sub-committee's observation that goodwill of the majority community was an important prerequisite for the return of Kashmiri pandits, the PKM said the majority community's goodwill had decisively failed at crucial points of time in 1931 1947, 1967, 1986 and 1989-90. Also, reducing this political problem to an economic one was ''ridiculous'', it added.

The PKM reiterated its demand for a separate homeland for the 700,000 Kashmiri Hindus and said this is the only guarantee for retaining them in the valley.

UNI