Jammu, May 8 (ANI): Kashmiri Hindus from the migrant township of Jagti in Jammu and Kashmir staged a demonstration on Tuesday, protesting against inadequate power supply in the township.
Shouting slogans against the provincial and federal governments, the demonstrators alleged that the power supply to Jagti had been brought down to four hours a day, from the already paltry supply of 6 hours. They blocked the highway from Jammu to Srinagar, demanding that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah come in person to address their problem.
"We want to warn Omar Abdullah about the injustice inflicted on us. Out of 24 hours, we get electricity for only 4 hours. We Kashmiri Hindu migrants receive only 44 rupees from the government. On the other hand, there is a policy to appease militants, who are paid 150 rupees," said Vinod, a demonstrator.
The Jagti township was handed over last year to Hindus who had left their homes in the Kashmir valley after a spurt in militant attacks in 1989. The residents, however, said that the flats provided to them were useless if their children did not have power supply to facilitate their studies and build a better future.
"We have been facing hardships for one year now. Our children do not go to school. There is no power from 10 in the night to 8 o'clock in the morning. Our children can neither sleep nor study properly. If our children have no future, what use are these flats to us?," said a demonstrator, Dolly Raina.
The protesters also spoke against authorities who had allegedly wanted them to sign an agreement to pay for the power supplied to the township.
From the 13th century, when Islam became a majority religion in Kashmir, until 1989, Muslims lived side-by-side with Pandits.
But nearly 250,000 Kashmiri Pandits left for safer places in India because of a sharp rise in killings of Hindus and attacks on their homes at the start of a rebellion by Muslim militants in 1989.
It was the largest migration since the 1947 partition of the subcontinent into mainly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan.
Kashmiri separatists have repeatedly urged Hindus to return to Kashmir where more than 43,000 people have died in the revolt, but have urged them to live side by side with Muslims rather than in "security zones". (ANI)
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