Separate township for Kashmiri Pandits not matter of choice but necessity: J&K Guv

New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has attacked Kashmiri political leaders and said they had lost the faith of their own people, citing low voting percentage in the recent Lok Sabha elections, reported Hindustan Times.

Asking about his take on Article 35A, Malik said, “Basically, it is in the court and my comment will be misconstrued so I don’t want to talk about it. Our stand, of the state government, has been that we are not an elected government and we cannot take a final call on it. It would be better that the new government comes and they decide what stand they want to take.”

Recently, the Parliament passed a bill to extend President’s rule in the state for six months. Malik said that only few days were left and conducting elections would not have been possible and that was why they had to extend it.

There has been an outrage about roads being blocked for Amarnath yatra buses. He said if they had not being organising the traffic, then there would have six-hour jams.

“At the moment, we are only stopping for a few minutes and letting others pass, stopping and letting them pass. That is traffic management, not blocking. No school student is being stopped, no advocate is being stopped, no one who’s come for work is being stopped,” he added.

He clarified that they are just reorganising the traffic. “It is false propaganda by local parties. The fact is locals do the yatra, not the security staff. They are the ones who provide the rides, the palkis [palanquin], they have the shops. This is a problem just made up by local politicians,” Malik said.

Talking about the idea of Kashmiri Pandits coming back to the valley and living in a gated community, Malik said, “All these people who claim to be major leaders there, haven’t we given them police and Army? Aren’t we protecting them? We will have to do the same for the Pandits. For this, Mehbooba and Omar, Farooq Sahab and Hurriyat should make an effort to convince their society to do this and leave their homes. I am just trying to provide them an alternate accommodation so that they have a home, a school and security.”

“Separate township is not a matter of choice but out of necessity. We have to give them a nice place to stay, of their choice,” he added.

Malik said that places for township have been identified in Pulwama and other places. He added that it would be given to them for free.