Displaced Kashmiri Pandits register housing society in Srinagar

Formation of society aims to secure land from govt at nominal rates for community’s settlement in Kashmir.

Srinagar: In a significant development, a group of Kashmiri Pandit families has registered a housing society in Srinagar, marking the first such initiative in nearly 35 years.

The formation of the society aims to secure land from the government at nominal rates for the displaced community’s permanent settlement in the Kashmir Valley.

The society, which has been registered with the Registrar Cooperative Societies, under the name “The Displaced Kashmiri Residents Housing Cooperative, Srinagar”, seeks to address the long-standing issue of the displaced community’s return and rehabilitation to the valley.

Around 55,000 Pandit families left their ancestral homes in 1990 and migrated to Jammu and other parts of the country when a bloody insurgency broke out in Kashmir in 1989.

The registered society plans to approach the Jammu and Kashmir government for allocation of land at affordable prices to build permanent housing for the displaced community, many of whom have been living in exile for over three decades.

Satish Mahaldar, secretary of the society, said the initiative is meant to integrate the migrants with the Muslim population instead of living in isolation in exclusive townships.

In 2015, the Center had asked J&K government to identify land for “composite townships” for displaced Pandits.

However, as the controversy erupted over the issue and under pressure from separatists then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, took a U-turn stating that there was no question of allowing ‘separate colonies’ for the Pandits in the Valley.

“We will not make separate clusters that Israel has set up... Neither we will make that (separate townships) nor they (Kashmiri Pandits) have desired to live in that,” Mufti had then said.

Mahaldar said he believes the community’s return to Kashmir has been politicised for electoral gains across the political spectrum. “There has been hardly any on-ground progress as far as the return of the community is concerned,” he said and added a list of 419 families ready to return was submitted to the central government in 2019.

“But there is no progress on it till date,” Mahaldar said. “As such we have set up a housing society for seeking land from the government at nominal rates.”

Mahaldar is optimistic about rebuilding trust despite a large section of the displaced community opposing his plan considering a spate of target killings in the valley since 2019.