Sikhs upset as Valley Pandits to get rehab benefits

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 1

The All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) today flayed the Centre and the state government for ‘changing the nomenclature of the package’ for the rehabilitation of the minority communities which did not migrate from the Valley.

In a statement, APSCC chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina said: “In 2012, the then state government had formulated a package for the Kashmiri minorities which did not migrate from the Valley. The benefits of the package never trickled down to the Sikh community. As if this was not enough, the present coalition government changed the nomenclature of the 2012 package.”

“The APSCC held a number of meetings with the present Home Minister and his predecessors so that justice was meted out to the Sikh community. But like his predecessors, the incumbent Home Minister failed to solve the problems of the Sikhs of Jammu and Kashmir. This has pushed the Sikhs of the state to the wall with no light in sight,” he further said.

The comments were made in the wake of a government order that non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits will also get the benefits of the rehabilitation package for the migrants.

Raina alleged that the Centre wanted the majority community and the minority Sikh community to suffer forever.

“In the past, the Central government ditched the majority community in the state and denied youth jobs in the government sector. For more than four decades, the majority community was debarred from getting benefits and privileges that were due to them,” he said.