Refugee Problem in J&K

The people of Jammu and Kashmir have witnessed immense turmoil and turbulence in more than three decades that ruptured the socio-religious ecosystem, leading to devastation of habitat and created worst challenges in terms of employment and livelihood. The ethno-religious conflict imposed on the frontline Himalayan region by Pakistan to destabilise the harmony has created immense issues and foremost among these challenges is the refugee issue. It would be unjust to say that this issue is of recent origin.It started when the Pakistani Army invasion of Jammu and Kashmir started in 1947 in the guise of a so-called tribal raid. It was a full fledged military assault or an open war to annex Jammu and Kashmir by force in spite of the fact that the ruler of the state had entered into a standstill agreement with Pakistan. Pakistan exploited the situation as the land routes before partition to connect the erstwhile princely state passed through the newly created dominion of Pakistan. Pakistan had its plan in place. Tribal militias from the frontier areas led by the Pakistani Army regulars ,who went on leave to lead this operation. So that their patrons in the Pakistani Army establishment and political leadership could indulge in plausible deniability and then enact the propaganda of religion in danger. Once these marauders crossed into the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir; they indulged in wholesale rape, plunder, loot and arson without sparing anyone. Their only objective was to inflict maximum damage on the lives and properties of the innocent and peace loving Kashmiris who believed in human values. In this process of loot they inflicted genocide on the people of Jammu and Kashmir and imposed genocidal attrition. Though the people of Jammu and Kashmir put a united front despite being without armed resources to halt these killers.There are numerous examples of bravery and sacrifice that depict the human values of the people of Jammu and Kashmir who didn’t care much to save the innocent people. But this tragedy inflicted the worst damage on the minorities in the now Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir(POJK) and held them hostage before they could be retrieved from various camps. There are horrifying first person accounts of the victims and the genocide survivors who have nightmares to this day.They lost their near and dear ones and got starned in the present Jammu and Kashmir that was left after accession to India.Though they tried to live their lives but the horrors of genocide have spoiled the generations. These first person accounts have been well documented by one the serious researchers on Jammu and Kashmir ,Dr.Ramesh Tamiri in his brilliantly researched book on 1947 armed invasion of Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir titled “Pakistan’s Invasion on J & K(1947-48)-Untold Stories of Victims.” But unfortunately this genocidal attrition did not end here. In 1989-1990 Jammu and Kashmir witnessed the worst subversive war when Pakistan adopted a policy of thousand cuts to balkanise India and indulge in an asymmetrical war against India. Military dictator of Pakistan General Zia-ul-Haq crafted an evil plan of “Operation Topac” to wrest Jammu and Kashmir from India with the active involvement of its ISI. This is operationalized by exploiting the youth of Kashmir through indoctrination and radicalisation. The religious minorities of Kashmir, Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to genocide and peace loving people from the Muslim majority community too were held hostage by terror modules by issuing the hitlists.This created a wedge and subjected the minority Kashmiri Pandits to religious cleansing.It wrecked the socio-cultural ecosystem.The outcome was the refugee problem.Thus the refugee problem stares Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 and it reached the climax in 1990.The Jammu and Kashmir Union territory(UT) Government and the Central Government must devise a policy framework to end the suffering of POJK refugees and Kashmiri Pandit refugees who are technically Internally Displaced People (IDP).As they are refugees within the borders of their own homeland that is Jammu and Kashmir. The refuge problem must end in Jammu and Kashmir. So that harmony and social stability is restored and a new example of justice deliverance is created for other ethno-religious conflict areas to adopt for the good of all humanity.