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Kashmiri Pandits urge US to give $ 200 m

C K Arora in Washington

A US-based organisation of Kashmiri Pandits has urged Congress to allocate 200 million dollars for the relief and rehabilitation of the 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits forced to flee their homes in the wake of cross-border terrorism masterminded by the Pakistani intelligence in the valley.

Indo-American Kashmir Forum director Hira L Fotedar, in his testimony before the staff briefing organised yesterday by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, urged the US and the United Nations to take initiative in recognising Pandits as refugees.

He wanted the United States to warn Pakistan that support of terrorism as a political and religious tool was totally unacceptable.

Pakistan should be given a deadline to dismantle terrorist training camps allied with Osama Bin Laden and Lashkar-e-Toiba group who had declared war against the people of the United States and India. If it failed to do so, Pakistan should be declared a state sponsoring terrorism, he added.

Dr Fotedar appealed to Congressmen to urge President Bill Clinton to write to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee expressing ''deep concern'' on the ethnic cleansing of Pandits in Kashmir.

UNI

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