J&Okay: Kashmir Pandits Demand Waqf Like Act To Shield Hindu Spiritual Locations | India Information
At a time when the Waqf Modification Act have grow to be a matter of nationwide debate, Kashmiri Pandits are demanding an identical invoice for the safety of Hindu non secular locations within the Union Territory. The Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) has acknowledged that if their calls for are usually not met, they may method the Supreme Courtroom.
In keeping with the KPSS, greater than 1,400 temple properties within the Kashmir Valley have been encroached upon. The group claims that such widespread encroachment wouldn’t have been potential with out the assist of the administration and sure politicians.
Sanjay Tickoo, Chief of the KPSS, stated, “There are round 1,400 properties which were encroached upon. Cast sale deeds have been created, and such actions wouldn’t be potential with out the collusion of officers and politicians. KPSS now has a brand new slogan—{that a} Sanatan Board must be fashioned, and each the Sanatan and Waqf Boards ought to work collectively. If this occurs, it’s going to foster brotherhood between communities. We’ll transfer to the Supreme Courtroom if the federal government doesn’t handle our calls for. Let’s see what they do in two months; in any other case, we are going to go to the Supreme Courtroom in June. Our calls for are usually not nearly temples, but in addition about employment and human rights violations which have occurred right here.”
The KPSS additional acknowledged that it’s morally reprehensible and legally indefensible that the Jammu and Kashmir Meeting, which has remained silent for the previous 35 years on points just like the encroachment of temples, desecration of shrines, and unlawful switch of 1000’s of kanals of Hindu endowment land, is now abruptly expressing concern in the case of regulating Waqf properties.
Basharat Bukhari, a PDP chief, commented, “I don’t know the present standing of Kashmiri Pandit properties, and I don’t know who instructed them that the WAQF Invoice is particularly for the safety of Muslim properties. We don’t even know what the implications of the invoice shall be. What we’re asking is: why has the federal government abruptly introduced this invoice ahead, and what precisely is their intent?”
In the meantime, the BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir unit has expressed assist for the KPSS’s calls for, stating that Kashmiri Pandits have each proper to boost their voice for the safety of their non secular locations and properties, and that the federal government should act to safeguard temple lands.
Altaf Thakur, spokesperson for the BJP’s J&Okay unit, stated, “What our Pandit brothers are demanding is real. A lot of their lands had been forcefully encroached upon once they had been displaced. Now that they’re searching for a invoice for the safety of those properties, the federal government ought to cross it.”
The KPSS emphasised that if there may be area for public outrage over Waqf reforms, then there should even be equal legislative, judicial, and administrative urgency to revive the usurped temples, shrines, and lands of the Kashmiri Pandits. They reiterated their demand that the Parliament and Union Territory administration instantly introduce a complete “Temples and Shrines Safety, Preservation, and Restoration Invoice.” If the federal government fails to behave inside two months, the KPSS has vowed to hunt justice by means of the Supreme Courtroom.
