JAMMU — The Kashmir Policy & Strategy Group, chaired by senior advocate Ashok Bhan, has urged the Government of India to formulate a comprehensive and time-bound roadmap for the return, rehabilitation and restitution of Kashmiri Pandits, saying “37 years of exile is too long”.
The demand was made during a web meeting held on Monday on the eve of Kashmiri Pandit Balidan Divas, according to a statement issued by the group.
The meeting paid tribute to members of the Kashmiri Pandit community who were killed during the period of violence in Kashmir. Participants alleged that the community was subjected to “genocide”, resulting in its displacement and forced exile from the Valley.
The group said the community had borne an “enormous human and civilisational cost” over 37 years, citing death, destruction, demographic dislocation and disruption of its heritage and culture.
The participants asserted that Kashmiri Pandits have an existential stake in Kashmir and described them as an indigenous community whose civilisational roots in the Valley extend back more than 5,000 years.
They said the community’s temples, traditions, scholarship, language, literature and cultural memory were inseparable from Kashmir’s civilisational identity.
The meeting further maintained that the return of Kashmiri Pandits should not be viewed solely as a rehabilitation or resettlement issue but as one involving “historical justice, dignity, identity and restoration”.
The group urged the Centre to formulate the proposed roadmap in consultation with representative Kashmiri Pandit organisations.
According to the statement, the roadmap should provide for security, voluntary and dignified return, property restitution, housing and livelihood opportunities, protection of temples and cultural heritage, and a meaningful stake for returning families in the social and economic life of Kashmir.
The participants also called for a time-bound implementation framework with measurable targets, clearly assigned institutional responsibility and periodic public review.
The meeting was attended by intellectuals, former bureaucrats, academicians, media personalities, social and women’s rights activists, representatives of community organisations, overseas diaspora representatives and youth representatives.
The group said its objective was to transform the community’s long-standing desire to return to the Valley into a national policy framework.
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