The separatists in Kashmir are jittery over the Union Home Ministry’s recent directive to extend concessions in seeking employment and education opportunities to West Pakistan Refugees (WPR) settled in Jammu & Kashmir.
The separatists say that the directive is a major step towards granting citizenship to the tens of thousands of WPRs who are entitled to vote but are referred to as Non-Permanent Residents.
On Friday, Jammu and Kashmir liberation Front (JKlF) chairman Yasin Malik staged a protest demonstration against the Central Government’s directive and vowed to launch an agitation against it.
The separatists view the “plan” as an attempt to “change the demography of Muslim majority State”. “Kashmiris will defend the special status of Jammu and Kashmir even at the cost of their lives”, Malik said before he was taken into custody along-with some of his supporters when he led a demonstration in lal Chowk area of Srinagar
Malik had plans to stage a sit-in at the commercial hub to register resentment against the Home Ministry’s directive. Both factions of Hurriyat Conference and United Jehad Council (UJC) have also expressed resentment against the concessions offered to WPRs.
“We share the pain of refugees from West Pakistan but if Indian State, its Parliament and political parties are concerned about these humans why don’t they settle them permanently in States of India like Punjab, Haryana and UP”, Malik said adding WPRs were citizens of India and not the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Granting WPRs permanent citizenship of Jammu Kashmir is a conspiracy to destroy the existing social fabric of Jammu and Kashmir, to change the demography of the state and to destroy its majority Muslim status”, he said.
Interestingly, the mainstream political parties have promised to address the issues faced by the WPRs in their poll manifestos. The BJP-led Central Government announced the concessions shortly after the party got resounding support in Jammu catapulting it to the position of forming the Government or becoming part of it.