Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) spokesperson Deepika Singh Rajawat said her party was fully convinced that the BJP and L-G administration had made it a “matter of ego” as they feared that if they succumbed to the pressure of the employees, their “extravaganza of normalcy would be exposed.” File
| Photo Credit: S. Gopakumar
The Jammu and Kashmir Congress on Sunday said the recent terror threats to the Kashmiri Pandit employees in the Valley, belied the government’s claims of normalcy.
A blog linked to The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, released separate lists of Kashmiri Pandit employees who were recruited under the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package (PMRP), and threatened to turn their transit colonies into “graveyards.” The government had recently informed Parliament that 118 civilians, including five Kashmiri Pandits and 16 other Hindus and Sikhs, were killed in Jammu and Kashmir between August 2019, when the Article 370 was abrogated, and July this year.
Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits and other reserved category employees had shifted to Jammu in May under threat from terrorists. They are currently on a protest for over 200 days, demanding the relocation of the Kashmiri Hindu employees outside the valley.
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“Quite recently … hit lists have been issued by the TRF, we ask the Lt. Governor to please explain how these employees can go back to their duties in such circumstances,” Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) spokesperson Deepika Singh Rajawat told reporters in Jammu.
“While he does not lose a minute to showcase his fairytale normalcy to his masters in Delhi, the bubble of his lies bursts factually when these lists are being published every other day,” she said.
Ms. Rajawat said her party was fully convinced that the BJP and L-G administration had made it a “matter of ego” as they feared that if they succumbed to the pressure of the employees, their “extravaganza of normalcy would be exposed.”
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“I want to remind them that it is not a political issue but a matter of life and death. We are fed up with our politicisation all over the country,” Ms. Rajawat, also a Kashmiri Pandit, said.
The Congress leader said there were many employees who were put up in rented accommodations and more prone to attacks from militants.
She demanded the immediate release of the salaries of the protesting employees and criticised the arm-twisting measure against the under-threat employees.
“No such pressure tactic should be used against them as these actions have already made the insensitive and indifferent approach of the UT administration apparent while dealing with an issue which is solely of a humanitarian nature,” she said.