Albright’s help sought in settling Kashmiri pandits

WASHINGTON, Oct 22: Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown has sought secretary of state Madeleine Albright's intervention in the rehabilitat...

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WASHINGTON, Oct 22: Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown has sought secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s intervention in the rehabilitation of Kashmir pandits rendered homeless in the wake of the Pakistani-inspired insurgency in the Kashmir valley.

In a letter, he drew Albright’s attention to her support for a peaceful resolution of the region’s disputes and said the “secure restoration of the pandits to their ancestral home in the Kashmir valley must be part of any comprehensive agreement”.

He wanted the secretary to take up the issue with the Government of India during her visit to New Delhi next month.

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“Since 1989, foreign-trained terrorists have attempted to establish an Islamic regime in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir by ridding the area of its non-Muslim minorities, especially pandits who are the original inhabitants of the valley”, he added.

Brown said the pandit community had subsequently been forced to live in bleak makeshift camps across India and had received little help from the state or central governments.

He noted that all the major pandit organisations in Jammu and Delhi had established a joint organisation, the Kashmir Pandit Political Steering Committee (KPPSC), to press their claims. “I hope yothe state and central governments to engage this organisation in meaningful dialogue”, Brown wrote in his letter to Albright.

He said the fact that the Kashmiri pandits remained exiled in their own country was “truly shocking, as were the conditions in which they are forced to live”.

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He said the state department’s report on human rights had recognised the plight of the Kashmiri pandits. “We must not turn our backs on them now”, he said adding “I urge you to raise this matter during your November trip to India and make it a regular item in our bilateral discussions with New Delhi”, he added.