Don’t force Kashmiri Pandits to go back to Valley: Rahul Gandhi in letter to PM

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the plight of displaced Kashmiri Pandit government employees who, he said, were being “forced” to return to the Valley without any surety of security amid a spate of targeted terror killings in the region.

In a letter written to the PM in Hindi, the Wayanad MP also slammed the “insensitivity displayed by the local administration” by refusing salaries to such employees who fail to appear for work, and called for “appropriate steps in this regard”.

Nearly 4,000 Kashmiri Pandits were employed in different government departments in the Valley after their selection under the Prime Minister’s employment package, according to the local administration. However, several Kashmiri Pandits left their homes in recent months in view of a series of attacks on civilians and members of the Pandit community.

Also read | ‘No BJP leader can walk like this… they get scared’: Rahul Gandhi in Kashmir

In November, the employees staged a protest outside the Jammu relief commissioner’s office for several days, seeking their relocation out of the Valley.

In his letter, Gandhi said: “Through this letter, I would like to draw your attention to the plight of the Kashmiri Pandit community displaced from the Kashmir Valley. The recent spate of targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits and others by terrorists has created an atmosphere of fear and gloom in the Valley.”

He added: “In these circumstances, forcing them to go to work in the Valley without any surety of safety and security is a cruel move. Till the situation improves and becomes normal, the government can take services from these Kashmiri Pandit employees in other administrative and public facilities.”

A copy of the letter was shared by the Congress on Twitter.

The home ministry told Parliament in December that nine Kashmiri Pandits were killed in the Valley since 2020 in targeted attacks.

Gandhi also mentioned his meeting with a 13-member delegation of Kashmiri Pandits during the Jammu leg of the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The delegation, he said, told him that the administration was forcing them to go back to work in the Valley. The delegation, he added, also complained about not receiving their salaries for over six months.

The Congress leader referred to remarks made by J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha in December that no salary would be given to government employees while they “continue to sit at home”.

“When the Kashmiri Pandits, pleading for their safety and family’s concerns, are expecting sympathy and affinity from the government, the use of words like ‘beggars’ by the Lt. Governor is irresponsible. Mr. Prime Minister, perhaps you are not familiar with this insensitivity displayed by the local administration,” he said.

Sinha made the remarks as several government employees from the community held protests after the killing of Rahul Bhat, a government employee in Budgam, and school teacher Rajini Bhalla in Kulgam, in May last year. The employees threatened to resign and sought to be transferred outside the Valley.

Concluding his letter, Gandhi said: “I hope you will take appropriate steps in this regard as soon as you get this information.” He also wished that Modi would continue to be blessed by Mata Kheer Bhawani, referring to the deity of a famous temple near Srinagar.

HT reached out to BJP for a comment on the matter but did not get a response immediately.