Admin Making All Efforts to Secure KPs, Says Court as it Disposes of PIL Seeking Help

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court disposed of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a leading Kashmiri Hindu rights group which had sought the court’s intervention to protect the lives of the religious minorities in the region in the wake of target killings since last year. 

The court said, “it is common knowledge that the administration is making all efforts to provide security and protection to the religious minorities in J&K and a robust mechanism is being deployed to avoid targeted killings and to investigate the incidents of all targeted killings.”

The Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS), which had filed the PIL earlier on June 1, had claimed that the religious minorities in the valley were under “direct threat” from militants and that they must be relocated to safer locations outside.

“We do not want to enter into the “merits of the issues which have been raised by the petitioner Samiti in the representation to this Court and rather considers it appropriate to leave those issues to be considered, negotiated and resolved at the level of the Government in consultation with the representatives of the petitioner Samiti,” a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Javed Iqbal Wani, said.  

The court also observed that the group is at liberty to submit a fresh representation highlighting its grievances before the Secretary, Home, Union Territory of J&K in a comprehensive manner. 

The court added that the Advocate General has placed a record note of Special DG, CID, and J&K in a sealed cover to contend that all possible care is taken to address all the above issues.

The KPSS is the most prominent rights group that represents Hindus who did not migrate in the 1990s despite a spike in insurgent violence.

In their plea, KPSS lashed out at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) led Central government for not allowing them to leave the valley despite increasing violence which claimed the lives of Kashmiri Pandits as well. The petitioners had also alleged that the Union Territory administration and the Central government has “failed to secure the life of these religious minorities.”

“Administration made KPs vulnerable to the threat by forcing them to live on roads. Security and Accommodation a false promises. Even Cancer Patients were not spared. The truth of Naya Kashmir under BJP use of Kashmiri Pandits to get them targetted and win sympathy for elections,” KPSS said in its latest tweet. 

The minority community especially the employees, who were recruited under the Prime Minister’s special package for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants, have been protesting for more than two months now for their demand for relocation. Their sit-in protest began on May 12 when revenue official Rahul Bhat was killed inside his office in Budgam by suspected militants. 

According to figures from the Ministry of Home Affairs, (MHA) as many as 118 civilians, including five Kashmiri Pandits, 16 Hindus and Sikhs have been killed in the Union Territory since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.