Denied share in rehabilitation package, allege Valley Sikhs

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 24

Displaced Sikhs from the Kashmir valley today blamed the government of adopting a discriminatory attitude towards the community while claiming that nearly 9,000 Sikhs had left the Valley in the last two decades due to militant threats.

A newly floated organisation, Displaced Kashmiri Sikh Conference, today claimed a majority of the displaced community members had been denied their share in the rehabilitation package announced by the Central government for settlement of Kashmiri Pandits.

According to the records, there were only about 1,700 Sikh relief-holders registered with the Relief Organisation in Jammu who were getting cash assistance and free ration after their migration from the Valley, they said. However, thousands others were not registered as they left Kashmir after the Chattisinghpora massacre in the year 2000, the organisation added.

“Sikhs should also have been involved in process to decide the ways to settle displaced people back in the Kashmir valley but unfortunately the state and Central governments have ignored us completely,” said Harmohinder Singh, president of the Displaced Kashmiri Sikh Conference.

Harmohinder Singh said that scores of Sikh families had to migrate from rural areas of the Kashmir valley to the urban centres and Jammu and they were deprived of their livelihood.

“Any rehabilitation plan should also consider Sikhs who migrated from the Kashmir valley due to militancy in 1989-90. We also faced similar conditions as being faced by Pandits and left our properties and villages to save our lives,” Harmohinder Singh added.