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'They want the valley to be Islamised completely. And even the BJP is playing vote-bank politics now'

R R Nair in New Delhi

They were from my village. I can recognise them. When I grow up I will kill them all." When seven-year old Satish Billo says this he does not seem to mean it. But the elders want him to do it. They expect the next generation to do what the others have been doing unto them.

Satish's father, a shop owner in Kokker Nag, 40 kilometres from Srinagar, was dragged away by terrorists from his home to a hilltop and killed.

"What remained of his body was only a few pieces of flesh," says Satish.

That was four years ago and still the guns boom in Kashmir. The 23 dead Pandits of Wandhama village is the leit motif for the second World Kashmiri Pandits Conference at the Siri Fort audtorium.

Fleeing the valley of death, the nowhere children are now refugees in their own country. They seek panun (our own) Kashmir on the right side of the Jhelum river.

The homeland they seek is a Union territory governed by the Centre with representation of their community.

But nobody is listening. "So the coming general election is meaningless for us. We don't have any representation and there is no means to let our voice heard in Parliament. Until a party comes out supporting our demands we will keep out from the election," asserts Ramesh Manvati, chief area co-ordinator (Delhi region) of Panun Kashmir (the Pandits group which has organised the conference.)

The Kashmir Pandits, who were traditionally supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party, are now piqued at the way the BJP has diluted its agenda.

The BJP agenda had always held that Article 370 of the Constitution which gives a special status to Jammu and Kashmir should be scrapped.

But the BJP, in its bid to project an image of a centrist party, has recently been skirting all contentious issues including Article 370.

Expectedly, the Kashmir Pandits in exile feel betrayed. "We are going to approach the President with an appeal to get our representatives nominated to Parliament. That is the only way out for us," says Manvati.

The Pandits are not keen even about the idea of setting up separate polling booths for the displaced community in Jammu and Delhi. They feel it would be of no use to them because no party represents the community's aspirations. Also, they are scattered all over the country.

But they are hopeful that BJP would issue an agenda sympathetic to their woes. The BJP has not released its manifesto yet.

"If we don't get a guarantee that our causes would be taken care of, we will not go to the polling booths," claims a Panun Kashmir official.

The Pandits feel there is an attempt to cleanse the valley of their community. "They want the valley to be Islamised completely. And even the BJP is playing vote-bank politics now; the same politics which destroyed us through the years," says Manvati.

The migrants from the valley are not satisfied by a show of sympathy either by the central government or the state administration or the Muslim leaders in the valley.

Tears of sympathy are not enough, they say. They alleged that the Muslim population in the valley which takes out processions against the military and paramilitary forces at the slightest provocation did not even organise a condolence meeting for the dead of Wandhama.

Pandits, the 'internally displaced' in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees's parlance, aggressively counter all statistics and claim that terrorism has not waned in the valley.

Meanwhile, the Kashmiri Samiti, an organisation of the Pandits, has met the President and asked him to postpone the election, invoke Article 356, dismiss the Dr Farooq Abdullah government and recall Governor General K V Krishna Rao.

Samiti president C L Gadoo has also sought an appointment with Chief Election Commissioner Dr Manohar Singh Gill to appraise him of the situation in the valley.

The National Human Rights Commission has, after hearing the Samiti's petition, asked its director general (investigations) to proceed to Wandhama village immediately and submit a report.

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