Omar Abdullah: ‘Every single (Pandit) employee who goes back, I consider it my personal failure’ | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
Omar Abdullah said the claims in the immediate aftermath of the revocation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, about the law being the root cause of terror were not being borne out on the ground.
Referring to the recent spate of civilian killings in the Kashmir Valley, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that he considers the failure of the Prime Minister’s employment package for migrant Kashmiri Pandits a personal failure. He also told The Indian Express in an interview that though the current security situation might give him a short-term political handle “with which to beat the BJP”, not everything in J&K should be weighed in terms of its “political benefits and costs”. “There are some things that are far more important. This is one of those,” he added.
Following prolonged protests against the killings and the administration’s alleged “failure” to protect them from targeted attacks, several Kashmiri Pandit government employees have started leaving the Valley. “I was part of the government that brought this (PM’s employment) package in and implemented it. Its failure, I will consider my failure,” Abdullah said. “Every single one of the employees who goes back from here, I consider a personal failure on my part. I would be the last person who would want to see them leave.”
Revenue Department employee Rahul Bhat who was shot dead on May 11 got the job as part of the employment package. The job scheme was announced in 2008 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the aim of drawing Pandit migrants back to the Valley and their eventual return and rehabilitation there.
Bhat lived in a secure accommodation at Sheikhpora, Budgam, which is Kashmir’s oldest and biggest such colony for Pandits. He was shot dead at his office, some distance away. In the past month, suspected militants have also killed a Hindu teacher from Jammu (Rajni Bala), a bank employee from Rajasthan (Vijay Kumar), a brick kiln worker from Bihar (Dilkhush Kumar), and an artist from Budgam (Amreen Bhat). Two minors were also injured in these attacks.
The National Conference (NC) vice-president said the government employees and the Union Territory’s administration had taken two extreme positions, “one with the Pandit employees saying we will take our jobs and leave and with the administration saying, we won’t let you, we are not going to facilitate another migration”. This did not leave a “common meeting ground”, he said.
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