Kashmiri Pandits have slammed ‘The Kashmir Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri and actor Anupam Kher saying “These two have sold our blood and pain, and now they are missing.” Actually, new trouble has arisen for Kashmiri Pandits who have come to Jammu from 10 districts of Kashmir. The Modi government has refused to pay the September salary to most of the Kashmiri Pandit employees working under the Prime Minister’s package. They include more than 4,000 employees. That is, 80 to 90% of the people are such, who have not received the money till now.
These employees have been protesting for their demand for the last 153 days. They are firm on their one-point demand for ‘relocation’ from the Valley. No consensus has been reached in the talks with the government so far. Expressing anger, the women employees who were protesting in large numbers told the media that the troubles have increased due to the government’s decision just before Diwali. Doesn’t the government want to see us happy on the festival?
In fact, the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir had issued an order on October 8 saying that the salary of September will not be released for the employee whose biometric attendance details are not there. This order is also applicable to more than 4 thousand Pandit employees working under the Prime Minister’s package.
Some Kashmiri Pandits have targeted the film ‘Kashmir Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri and actor Anupam Kher. They said, “These two have sold our blood and pain, and now they are missing. Today when the real ‘Kashmir file’ is going on here, why is the government silent? Where are those Hindu people?”
The people sitting on the dharna told that it is true that most of the employees have not received their salary for September. However, the reality is also that the employees of many departments have not been paid salaries for 3-4 months.
Referring to the behavior of government officials, Kashmiri Pandit employees said that just before the visit of Home Minister Amit Shah, they had applied to the Divisional Commissioner of Jammu division and sought permission to meet Shah. But he rejected the application outright.
Kashmiri employee Ranjan Zutshi said that we had clearly told the divisional commissioner that we are employees. There are no terrorists, you allow us to meet the Home Minister or hand over our demand letter, but nothing has been done.