Minister: Opposition had vested interest in Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus

Jammu, March 27

Union Minister Jitendra Singh today alleged that contrary to the myth being spread that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) was engineered by the then Governor, Jagmohan, at the behest of the BJP, the “fact is that the National Conference (NC), the Congress and their Kashmir-centric allies had a vested interest in the exodus because it gave impetus to their policy of appeasement towards a particular community”.

Speaking at a programme organised to name a government school in New Delhi after Shaheed Tika Lal Taploo, Singh said, “In the aftermath of Kashmiri Pandit exodus and the overwhelming atmosphere of terror that followed, the voter turnout in 1996 and the subsequent elections remained confined to around 10%, which the NC and its allies were successful in easily manipulating to get their members elected as MLAs and MPs.”

He said, he and several other youth activists of his generation were eyewitness to each sequence of exodus beginning from the arrival of the first batch of Kashmiri Pandits at Geeta Bhawan and makeshift camps at Mishriwala and Nagrota in Jammu, where they lived in most unhygienic conditions with the drains passing through the kitchen area and hardly any toilet facility available.