Voting rights continue to elude refugee families of RS Pura

Dinesh Manhotra
Tribune News Service
Slehar (RS Pura), December 9

The ongoing panchayat elections are nothing but a cruel joke for nearly 1,500 Dalit families of RS Pura subdivision of Jammu district as they don’t voting rights.

Scattered over nearly 30 villages of RS Pura, these families have been living here since 1947. However, they are being debarred from participating in any democratic process except the Lok Sabha elections. The reason is that their elders had entered J&K from West Pakistan at the time of Partition and the refugee tag continues to haunt them.

“During Partition, my grandfather and his family entered Jammu. Now, 71 years have passed and we are still treated as Pakistani guests and denied all constitutional rights,” laments Ravinder Kumar, a resident of Gazipur Kullian village, where polling is going to be held on Monday. Ravinder is the third generation of West Pakistan refugees struggling to get the democratic right.

Since these “stateless” families have no voting rights, the elected panchayat representatives ignore them. As a result, the areas being inhabited by them lack basic amenities. “We are part and parcel of this village. We have been living here since 1947, but we have no right to cast vote in the panchayat elections,” he said.

Labha Ram Gandhi, chairman, West Pakistani Refugees Action Committee, told The Tribune, “Like other border areas of Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts, a large number of West Pakistan refugee families have been living in the RS Pura subdivision and they have been singled out in the panchayat elections.”