WG destroying secular fabric of country: Panun Kashmir

Jammu, Sep 8 (UNI) Panun Kashmir, an organisation spearheading the cause of displaced Kashmiri Pandits, today demanded the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir so that secular identities in the state get strengthened.

Talking to media persons at a press conference here, Panun Kashmir chairman Ajay Chrungoo, who participated in 4th Working Group meeting, said the WG was moving toward fulfilling the agenda of greater autonomy for the state which will destroy to secular fabric of the country.

Dr Chrungoo said, '' The way the WG meeting on the Center-state relations was conducted, it has raised apprehensions that a section of the Union Government is trying to use the platform for furthering the agenda of greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir.'' Great exception was taken by the Pandit leader to the participation of Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah in the WG meet.

Termed Mr Habibullah a 'public relation officer' (PRO) of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (Yaseen Malik faction), Dr Chrungoo said, ''Mr Habibullah seems to have emerged as a PRO for JKLF in recent times. Not very long ago did he advocate the concept of five regional assemblies for Jammu and Kashmir which broadly coincides with the concept of regions for the state by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.'' Even in the WG Mr Habibullah advocated developmental devolution in the state along the demographic chasms of the regions within the state, said Dr Chrungoo, asking, ''Is the Union Government unaware of the views of Mr Habibullah ? If not then where are we heading for?'' Panun Kashmir, he said, had expressed very clearly in the WG that so far Jammu and Kashmir continues to have a constitutional position safeguarding its Muslim majority character and no measure can correct the developmental imbalance between communities and regions.

''The discrimination in the state emanates from the Muslim communal character of its politics and organisation,'' he added.

Dr Chrungoo said the brazenly communal stand taken by National Conference and Peoples' Democratic Party in the meeting ''reinforces our assessment that even the so-called moderate sections of the Muslim leadership have a commitment to secularism, which is not even skin deep''.

''To expect them to stand for principles of coexistence will be expecting too much,'' he added.

Panun Kashmir, he said, had therefore asked for the reorganisation of the state so that secular identities in the state were empowered.

The creation of 'Panun Kashmir' with union territory status at northeast of the Jehlum River for rehabilitation of displaced Pandits had become an imperative necessity more than at any point of time in the history of the state, he added.

UNI