Kashmiri Pandit Employees Detained In Jammu For Staging Protest, Demanding Transfer From Valley, Salary Dues

Several Kashmiri Pandit employees were detained in Jammu after they staged a protest demanding transfer from the valley and their salary dues.

Several Kashmiri Pandits employees detained for staging protest in Jammu

Source : PTI

New Delhi: Around 50 migrant Kashmiri Pandit employees were detained in Jammu on Wednesday after they staged a protest demanding a transfer from the Valley and release of their salary dues, reported PTI citing officials. 

The report said that the employees were detained shortly after they assembled for a protest to press for their demands. They were supposed to stage a protest outside the Press Club but were not allowed by police, the PTI report said. 

When not allowed to protest outside the Press Club, the migrant employees assembled in the nearby chowk and started to raise slogans in support of their demands. The police then detained nearly 50 protesters and shifted them to the Police Lines in a bus. 

"We tried to persuade them to disperse but since they were adamant about continuing the protest, we took them into preventive custody," a government official said as quoted by PTI. 

When asked if prohibitory orders had been implemented outside the Press Club where protests are organised frequently, the official said prolonged protests in the area have become a public nuisance. 

"There are no restrictions on peaceful protests for half an hour or one hour but they are occupying the space for hours till midnight, causing hardship to commuters and preoccupying the administration and the police," he said. 

Notably, hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits employed in the Valley under the Prime Minister's package moved to Jammu last May following the killing of two colleagues, Rahul Bhat and Rajini Bala, by terrorists. 

While Bhat was shot dead inside his office in central Kashmir's Budgam on May 12, school teacher Rajini Bala was gunned down in south Kashmir's Kulgam on May 31. 

According to PTI, on February 4, Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha said many of the employees had resumed their duties in the Valley and directions were issued to release their pending salaries. Sinha added the administration and the security forces were working to ensure the community's safety. 

However, the protesters claimed most of the employees are not willing to return to the Valley due to a "sense of insecurity" and that only a few hundred employees had resumed their duties under compulsion  

As per the PTI report, Yogesh Pandita, a leader of the protesting employees, said, "We have submitted dozens of memorandums and even met the Lt Governor but all our pleas fell on deaf ears... Maha Shivratri, the biggest festival of the Pandit community, is around the corner but they are not releasing our salaries." 

The protesters said they are facing financial issues since the government stopped their salaries in September. 

"We left Kashmir due to the terror threat, which has not faded. If we return, where will we go as we do not have secure accommodation?" Pandita said. 

Another protester Rahul Pandit criticised the government for imposing Section 144 of the CrPC outside the Press Club and said they "are on a peaceful protest for the past 290 days but never blocked traffic or caused inconvenience to anyone", the PTI report mentioned. 

"The government is trying to hide the reality from the public and is not even allowing peaceful protests. We are forced to come on the roads as nobody is listening to us," he said, quoted PTI.