'Reverse attempts for demographic changes in JK'

New Delhi, May 4: Kashmiri Pandits today warned that peace in the valley would remain elusive if the initiatives taken by the centre don't incorporate a comprehensive and permanent reversal of genocide of Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing a press conference here, a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks with the separatist Hurriyat Conference, 'Panun Kashmir' Convenor Ajay Chrangoo said there had to be a ''paradigm shift'' in the government's thinking for solving the Kashmir problem.

He accused the Centre of not having any policy on how to reverese the attempts being made at ''demographic changes'' in Jammu region.

Strongly condemning the recent massacre of 36 people in Doda and Udhampur districts of Jammu region by terrorists, Dr Chrangoo warned that after driving out Pandits from the valley, attempts were now being made to force the exodus of Hindus from Jammu region.

''The government of India does not have any policy on how to reverse the attempts being made at demographic changes,'' he said.

He urged the Centre to recognise the ''fatal consequences'' of giving legitimacy to religious sub-nationalism as a denomination of sharing power in Jammu and Kashmir.

This recognition, he said, had been responsible for emergence of a ''politics of blackmail, secessionism, communalism and fundamentalism'' of the Kashmiri society.

''The ongoing terrorism has bred on the underlying substratum of this communalism. Destabilisation of Kashmiri Hindus and their religious cleansing was its logical first fall-out and second partition of India would be the next consequence,'' he added.

Urging the goverment not to surrender to Pakistan's ''nuclear blackmail,'' the Panun Kashmir leader said both the NDA as well as the UPA governments had willy nilly accepted that Pakisan has a locus standi on Kashmir. This could have dangerous long-term consequences for India's future, he added.

He also criticised the Kashmiri political leaders for towing the line of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on the issues of demilitarisation and self rule and raising them at the highest political level.

Meanwhile, the Akhil Bharatiya Yuva Muslim Committee, an organisation of Muslim youth, also condemned the gunning down of 36 people in Jammu region and organised a condolece meeting at Jantar Mantar to pay homage to the victims of the massacre.

UNI