Terror threat belies J&K govt’s normalcy claims: Congress

Jammu, December 18

The J&K Congress on Sunday said the recent terror threats to 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-Toiba, had 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 J&K between August 2019, when 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 have been staging protests for over 200 days, demanding relocation of Kashmiri Hindu employees outside the Valley. “Quite recently … hit lists have been issued by the TRF. We ask the Lieutenant Governor to explain how can these employees go back to join their offices in such circumstances?” J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) spokesperson Deepika Singh Rajawat told reporters here.

“While the L-G does not lose a minute to showcase his fairytale normalcy to his masters in Delhi, the bubble of his lies bursts factually when such lists are published every other day,” she said.

Rajawat said her party was fully convinced that the BJP and the L-G administration had made it a “matter of ego as they feared if they succumb to the pressure of employees, their extravaganza of normalcy will be exposed.”