Kashmiri Pandit migrants are internally displaced: UN

PTI
New Delhi, Nov 03: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said it treats Kashmiri Pandit migrants as 'Internally Displaced Persons', a status the community has been demanding for long, but made it clear that the world body has no role to play in their case.

"The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has no role with Internally Displaced Persons in India," the world body said in response to a memorandum submitted by a Kashmiri Pandit group 'Roots in Kashmir' (RIK).

In the memorandum, submitted during the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon last Friday, the Kashmiri group appealed that the world body take cognisance of the plight of Pandits who had to leave their homes in the valley.

The RIK said that even 19 years after the mass exodus, over 50,000 of "Kashmiri Pandit refugees are living in pathetic conditions in uninhabitable refugee camps" and that the successive Central and state governments had failed in protecting their rights.

In response, the UNHCR said its mandate is to work for refugees and "in some countries, on invitation by sovereign governments, with internally displaced populations".

Making a distinction between internally displaced persons and refugees, it said it depends on whether the people have crossed an international border.

"They (Kashmiri Pandits) may have left Kashmir for reasons very similar to those who become refugees, but since they have not crossed an international border, they continue to be protected by the same national government (in this case India) in a different part of the country (Jammu, Delhi, Mumbai, etc)," it said.

"They have not lost the protection of the national government," the UNHCR said, adding the world body steps in when people lose the protection of their national governments, by crossing an international border.

Bureau Report (PTI)
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Links:

Zee News - http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=480822&sid=NAT
Daily Excelsior - http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/08nov04/news1.htm#4

Kashmiri Pandits submit memorandum to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in New Delhi

A joint delegation of up to ten Kashmiri Pandit groups submitted a memorandum to UN General Secretary Ban-Ki-Moon, who is visiting India, regarding their demands, which include, to be declared as IDPs Internally Displaced Persons.

Kashmiri Pandits hold protest
Staff Reporter, The Hindu

NEW DELHI: Kashmiri Pandits belonging to various organisations staged a protest in the Capital on Friday to seek the intervention of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by declaring them as internally displaced persons.

They have appealed to the UN Secretary General to take cognisance of their plight as more than “400,000 of them have had to leave their homes in the Valley to escape persecution”.

Organisations that participated in the protest included Roots in Kashmir, Panun Kashmir, Kashmiri Samiti Delhi, Internally Displaced Kashmiri Pandit Youth Front, All-India Kashmiri Samaj, Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch, All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference, Panun Kashmir Youth Front, Kashmiri Pandit United Forum and Jammu and Kashmir National United Front.

According to Roots in Kashmir coordinator, Aditya Raj Kaul, over 50,000 of Pandit refugees are living in pathetic conditions in refugee camps even after 19 years of mass exodus.

“The Pandit community believes that successive Union and State governments have failed to protect their human rights. Moreover, human rights organisations have failed to highlight violation of their rights. Some of the demands of Kashmiri Pandits to the UN include ensuring adequate protection to the residual Kashmiri Hindu population currently living in the Valley,” added Mr. Kaul.

Important demand

Stating that restoration of Kashmiri Hindus’ political and economic rights in their State was an important demand, Mr. Kaul said this would give them equal status rather than a second class citizenship in their native land as share of jobs for them in bureaucracy, State supported professional educational institutes and the representation in the State Assembly has steadily diminished in the past two decades.

“Grant funds to Kashmiri Hindus for the preservation and documentation of relics of Kashmiri Hindu heritage and culture. Direct the Government to hand over the management of religious shrines, icons and cultural centres to Kashmiri Hindu leadership,” added Mr. Kaul.

Link - http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/01/stories/2008110153670400.htm

March for justice: Members of ‘Roots in Kashmir’ protesting outside the office of United Nations Human Rights Commissioner seeking internally displaced people status for the Kashmiri Pandits in New Delhi on Friday.

The Statesmen

Rashtriya Sahara

Hindustan

Punjab Kesri

Dainik Bhaskar

Pandits demand recognition as Internally Displaced Persons
PTI

New Delhi, Oct 31: Demanding that they be declared as Internally Displaced Persons, a group of Kashmiri Pandits on Friday held a protest here seeking intervention of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in the matter.

The Pandits belonging to various organisations submitted a memorandum to Moon, who is on a two-day visit to India. They appealed to Moon to take cognisance of the plight of Pandits who had to leave their homes in the valley.

Even 19 years after the mass exodus, more than 50,000 of these Kashmiri Pandit refugees are living in "pathetic conditions in uninhabitable refugee camps", they said.

They alleged that successive Central and state governments had failed in protecting their rights. They also demanded the government set up a 'Commission of Enquiry' to establish the causes that led to the killings of Kashmiri Pandits.

Link - http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=480065&sid=NAT

UNHCR Associate External Relations officer Nayana Bose accepting the memorandum.

Women Activists holding a banner which asks UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki Moon's intervention for the IDP status of Kashmiri Pandits.

Picture taken from inside a hole of a Police barracde shows a Kashmiri pandit girl behind the banner hodling a placard.

Kashmiri Pandits demand 'internally displaced persons' status

IANS
Kashmiri Pandits held a silent sit in protest outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office here Friday, demanding that the community, which fled the Kashmir Valley during the peak of militancy 20 years ago, be declared as internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The community represented by Kashmiri youth organisations in the capital like Roots in Kashmir, Internally Displaced Youth Front, Panun Kashmir, All India Kashmir Samaj, and others, along with elderly members of the community in Delhi, presented a five-page memorandum of their demands to Nayona Bose of the UNHCR to be forwarded to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is on a two-day visit to India.

We welcome the UN secretary on his visit to India. As a community we, therefore, appeal to him to help us - declare the Kashmiri Hindu community as IDPs, Lalit Ambardar, 35, a qualified engineer who was one of the 100-odd protestors, told IANS.

The Human Rights Working Group on Minorities in Geneva had recognised Kashmiri Hindus formally as a 'reverse minority'. So the use of the insulting term of 'migrants' for us - a forcibly exiled community - should be removed from all records and communications relating to us henceforth, Ambardar chorused the protestor's demand.

Many others protestors were angry about the state to which Kashmiri Hindus have been reduced since insurgency in the Kashmir Valley in 1989-90, when more that 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits fled their homes to escape persecution.

Historically, Kashmiri Pandits were known to be intellectuals, but now we are rotting away - we are a national waste - we have no political representation, have no geographic ethnicity that we can claim as our own! fumed Raj Raina, 37.

Raina was unable to get a government job owing to his 'migrant' status. He is now self-employed and runs a small printing press.

When I was forced to leave my home in the Valley, militants threatened us time and again - merge with us (with political and religious views), perish or vanish, Raina recapitulated memories of the insurgency.

Amongst those present from the community were varsity students, who also held that the current situation was sordid.

Calling us migrants implies that we had a choice in the matter, when we were actually forced to flee, said Aditya Raj Kaul, a 22-year-old student activist from Delhi University.

We have demanded in the memorandum that the UN direct the Indian government to ensure adequate protection to the residual Kashmiri Hindu population living in the Valley. Also that Kashmiri Hindus be restored political and economic rights, giving them equal status rather than second-class citizenship in their native land, Kaul informed.

Link - http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/World/20081031/1092947.html

Kashmiri Pandits submit memorandum to UN
Aastha Manocha, Indian Express

New Delhi, October 31: A joint delegation of up to ten Kashmiri Pandit groups submitted a memorandum to UN General Secretary Ban-Ki-Moon, who is visiting India, regarding their demands, which include, to be declared as IDPs Internally Displaced Persons.

The joint memorandum was handed over to the UNHCR Associate External Relations officer Nayana Bose by Dr. SS Toshkhani, a noted Kashmiri Pandit scholar, and other community elders while others held banners depicting their plight and highlighting their demands.

We fulfill nearly all the criterion there is for Internally Displaced Person yet we have not been accorded this status due to the Indian government’s own inhibitions, said Mr. Rakesh Gurkha, a Kashmiri Pandit. We do not want any money but we want our demands to be met, he added.

Elaborating on the memorandum, Mr. Sushil Pandit, another community member present there, said, “we told the officer that we are a community of over 50, 000 plus people who have been displaced from their homes more for almost two decades now and want to be declared an IDP as we fit all the criteria set by the UN and other organizations for human rights. In fact, in some of its reports, we (Kashmiri Pandits) have been mentioned.”

Internally Displaced Persons are people who have been forced to flee because their lives were in danger but unlike refugees didn’t cross any international border.

According to The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), established in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council ‘Internally Displaced Persons are people who have been forced to flee because their lives were in danger but unlike refugees didn’t cross any international border.’

It also goes on to add that while refugees get more international attention the international community is not under any obligation to look after the IDPs hence the onus often lies with the government itself to look after the IDPs. However, they are often found lacking in this respect.

An example of this is India itself, as after accepting the Pandits’ memorandum Ms Bose made it clear that the UNHCR has no role with Internally Displaced Persons in India.

‘By mandate, UNHCR works for refugees and in some countries, on invitation by sovereign governments, with internally displaced populations.’

Link - http://www.kashmirlive.com/story/Kashmiri-Pandits-submit-memorandum-to-UN/379855.html

Made in Pakistan by Kamal Hak

Trading has begun across LOC in Kashmir . The Kashmiri muslims must be feeling happy, excited and great. They will now have the access to the pious produce of their religious fraternity. The quality or price will no longer be a concern. Those considerations are reserved for the things produced by kafirs in Hindustan .

One day in early eighties I was sitting with the owner of United Medical Hall, Kupawara in the course of my duties as a medical representative. It was a good day for business as sowing season had just finished and the villagers were now flocking to either courts for settling scores with their neighbours or to doctors for obtaining prescriptions for glucose bottles.

Gul Saeb of United Medical Hall was a nice and simple man. People also called him khuda dost as he was truly a gentle person who was never provoked into raising his voice. At this particular moment when my attention was focused on exploring the possibilities of reducing the gap between my sales target and achievement; and while I was motivating a salesman to give me the actual stock position of my products I found Gul Saeb engaged in an animated discussion with a Khoja.

“Hak saeb, please explain to Haji Saab.” Gul Saeb turned towards me with visible signs of frustration on his face.

“I want Indral and he is not giving me that.” Khoja informed me.

I found myself a reluctant mediator and in retrospect am glad for that as it has given me a beautiful reminiscence of an extent a Kashmiri muslim can go in the pursuit of his fanatic idiosyncrasy.

Khoja wanted made in Pakistan Indral, which he had earlier purchased at Kralapur, and found better than Indral produced in either England or Hindustan . It is made with Pakh(Pure) water by Pakh people.

Many months later, we are enjoying hot pakora’s while whiling our time in Tej Watul’s cloth shop situated bang in the middle of Jogilanker market in Rainawari. Suddenly there is a commotion across the road in front of Chuni Wattul’s (he was not Watul as Wattals were called but Wattul most probably derived from Wattul Kyom) medical shop. A lady in a traditional mulsim attire of feran and shalwar is mercilessly thrashing a young man. The young man along with the spectators is helpless before her fury. Even Amma Babur’s intervention is of no assistance. The lady is unfurling choicest of curses on the young man, who has now resigned himself to his destiny. Many rolls of cloth wound over wooden rods are lying scattered near the scene and a cycle in a battered condition is also lying flat nearby. Soon a couple of constables appear and save the poor man. They ask the lady the cause of her anger.

“I want my sixty rupees back. I purchased two meters of printed cloth from him for sixty rupees two months back. They cloth didn’t survive a single wash. Now he either returns my money or I send him to cancer ward in Soura.”

“But, Mouji, how could you pay sixty rupees for ordinary cloth which could not have been worth even ten.”

“Do you think I am so clumsy? This illegitimate son of his mother fooled me by claiming the cloth was made in Pakistan .”

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani...

"Hum Pakistan hain, Pakistan hamara hai"

..So goes Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the grand old man of the Kashmiri seperatists struggle. But perhaps now, after his fifth operation, he will have to add 'par mera pacemaker hindustani hai'.

Mr Geelani recently had an operation in Delhi's Escorts hospital to have his pacemaker replaced. There can be little doubt as to who funded this operation in this top hospital of the Indian capital where not many of the cities residents itself would think of getting admitted due to the costs involved.

An artificial pacemaker regulates the heartbeat when the heart is unable to do it itself because of some reason.

Funny, because that seems the role of the Indian govt in the Kashmir struggle. India's various unwise decisions and refusal to learn from the mistakes of the past have often regulated the Kashmir struggle and helped it to grow.

So yes, perhaps Mr. Geelani is right in getting his pacemaker from India, after all the unwise decisions of the same govt have been regulated the heartbeat of the Kashmir struggle without which this so called struggle would have died out long ago.

Our only solace - atleast now Mr Geelani can also rightfully state - Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani!
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Related Post -

Geelani's shit and Hindu "hit"

There you go again, Mr.President!!

by Pooja Shali

Asif Ali Zardari seems to be creating one storm after another. As if his extremely vocal appreciation of Sarah Palin’s beauty was not enough, there appeared one more explosion from the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband. The recent one, however, is more dramatic and exclusive. In an interview to Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, Zardari confessed to the active presence of militant Islamic groups in J&K (according to him within the Indian occupied border). He elaborated by referring to them as ‘terrorists’ and continued to say that they are not ‘freedom fighters’ as Musharraf must have liked.

As the broadcast and print media began to flash these exclusive words, our countrymen were stunned. Coming from a Pakistani President, predecessors of whom have supported the absurd so-called freedom struggle, this was an uncanny moment.

The defence minister of Pakistan (on Times Now) expressed shock at this statement, and tried to cover up the matter stating that the president was misconstrued. So was it really a preposterous blunder by Zardari? Or the leadership of Pakistan has decided to finally withdraw its support to the ongoing terrorism in Kashmir? Or was it just another well planned political move?

The author would like to believe that it’s all three of the above. Pakistan has thought and rethought its stand on Kashmir. The upheaval that their government has supported for decades in Kashmir, which ruined a million lives, has begun to haunt them now in the global arena. While its favourite neighbour is all set to sign a nuclear deal, Pakistan is busy trying to hide its inner turmoil that has also paralysed its borders. Constant references to terrorism in India supported by the ISI, became too much of a burden for its leadership. The inability to counter such claims has also unwrapped Pakistan’s insecure present and uncertain future. Perhaps, it was obvious that Zardari came out to be an authority against terrorism in the valley as opposed to supporting it. Whether or not he meant his words, is a different game altogether.

The Pakistani government weighed too much of its integrity on Kashmir, but failed miserably to convince the world that it was a fair deal. They seemed to have realised the rickety platform on which Pakistan currently stands. Expanding space for Kashmir will only push them into murky waters. For a while it shall be a wise standpoint for Pakistan to depart from their pretentious adoration of the valley and concentrate on its inner advancement.

PPP might try to clarify his stance by distinguishing terrorism and Kashmir Liberation Movement as two separate entities, but the debacle has been witnessed. The smouldering divide between Muslim separatists and Pakistani leadership is unbolted for the world to see.

Going by the current scenario in valley where ‘Yahan chalo’ and ‘Wahan chalo’ movements are in vogue, the isolation of separatists is visible. A Frankenstein they created against non-Muslims in Kashmir has today re-emerged to attack their own side, and certainly with a more monstrous outline.

As for Zardari, if he tries to clarify his words anymore, I too shall have a small advice for him- “Mr.President, the sooner you try and understand the ideology of Pakistani leadership the better it shall be for your throne”.

Kashmiri Pandits protest outside UN office at New York

Friday September 26, 2008 was a great day for the Global KP community. KPs from NY State, Connecticut and New Jersey , under the banner of IAKF(Indo American Kashmir Forum), participated in a rally outside the United Nations. We exceeded our quota of 20 to 25 people that the police had restricted us to and ended up having 30 people. The group was a diverse one and represented spouses whose husbands were working, CEOs, Representatives from Wall Street, Faculty members, Doctors, Managers, 2 Movie producers, attorneys and other members of the elite KP intelligentsia. The Protestors braved the rain and shouted slogans denouncing Islamic Terrorism.They submitted a memorandum to the UN Gen.Secretary Ban ki Moon.

This is a wake up call to those murders who thought they had driven us out and hence finished the opposition against the Talibanization of Kashmir.They must remember that each displaced child is letting the world know how Islamists ruined Kashmir,killed and raped,desecrated and destroyed.

It is a shame that the Government of India is still not standing up to the Islamic terrorists.They are letting them loose in Kashmir.Otherwise what explains Syed Ali Shah Geelani,Yasin Malik,Mirwaiz or even Mehbooba roaming free and spreading more venom.

For more pictures please click here