Act tweaked to adjust 5,300 PoJK families

Dinesh Manhotra & Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune reporters

Jammu, May 19

After the intervention of the central BJP leadership, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act has been modified to accommodate 5,300 ‘left-out’ displaced families from Pakistan-occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJK), who are settled in various parts of the country.

‘Deprived citizens’

Advertisement

The issue was brought to the notice of the central leadership as it was a big flaw and deprived genuine citizens of the domicile right. — Narendra Singh, BJP refugee leader

In the rules notified by the Union Territory government on Monday, the word “displaced persons” has been inserted in Section 3-A, clause1-b of the J&K Reorganisation (Adoption of State Laws) Order, 2020, to facilitate the displaced families.

Earlier, only the word ‘migrants’ was mentioned in the clause, but in the fresh notification, the word ‘displaced persons’ has been inserted, especially for the PoJK refugees settled in the country.

Since the issuance of the domicile notification on April 1, 2020, PoJK refugees have been demanding that the 1947 refugees, settled in other parts of the country, be also made eligible for domicile.

In 1947, hundreds of Hindus and Sikh families from Poonch, Muzaffarbad, Kotli and Mirpur districts of PoJK had migrated to safer places. While a majority of the families are settled in the Jammu province, 5,300 families had taken shelter in refugee camps set up outside J&K.

The refugees were named displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied areas of J&K vide an order No. 1476-C of 1950. They have been the victims of neglect and technicalities. The government had not registered the displaced families who had taken shelter outside J&K.

‘Demography will change’

Kashmir-centric political parties and the Hurriyat Conference have described the notification for the domicile policy rules for J&K as “ill-timed” and apprehended that all this was meant to change the demographic character of Kashmir.

Leading the campaign against the domicile certificate notification on Tuesday were the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party and the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party.

A NC spokesman said that Central government should have desisted from such a move as the matter regarding the special status was before the Supreme Court. He said all changes announced with regard to J&K, tinkering with its specials status and bifurcation of the state into two UTs was “unconstitutional.”