About 62,000 Kashmiri Pandit families in the country: Government

New Delhi, Dec 17: There are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families in the country, the government informed Parliament on Wednesday.

"Due to onset of militancy in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in early 1990s, most of the Kashmiri Pandit families including some Sikh and Muslim families migrated from the Kashmir Valley to Jammu, Delhi and other cities in different states.

At present there are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families in the country.

"About 40,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families are residing in Jammu, about 19,338 registered Kashmiri migrant families are in Delhi and about 1,995 families are residing in other states," Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibai Chaudhary said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

As a result of packages offered to these families by the government in 2008, one family has returned to the Kashmir Valley while government jobs have been provided to 1,466 migrant youths and 469 transit accommodations have been constructed in the Kashmir Valley, he said.

PTI