This refers to the editorial, “Not refugees; citizens” (December 27). The editorial rightly defends the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP Government's commendable decision to grant identity certificates to ‘refugees' who migrated to Jammu & Kashmir from west Pakistan at the time of partition. Unfortunately, for seven decades, these migrants were denied citizenship unlike partition refugees elsewhere in the country, thanks to communal-minded regimes in J&K. The identity certificates will enable the ‘refugees’ seek jobs in police forces and Government offices.
Although these refugees reportedly number one lakh or so, Kashmiri separatists and their cronies and some political parties like the National Conference are raising a furore, opposing the decision as a conspiracy to upset J&K's demography that is currently dominated by Muslims. How can a small group of refugees, deprived of human justice for long, destroy the demographic equation and harmony by getting its basic rightsIJ