Hundreds of fear-stricken Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley for Hindu-majority Jammu district on Friday even as the Centre turned down their demand of relocation. Amid this, a prominent Pandits’ body, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), in an open letter to the J&K Chief Justice, sought his intervention to allow frightened Pandits to leave the Valley.
Scores of vehicles, carrying Pandit employees and their families, left the Valley early in the morning from the Pandit transit colonies in south Kashmir’s Mattan and Vessu, Srinagar’s Sheikhpora and north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Kupwara.
Kashmiri Pandits living at the Mattan transit colony in Anantnag claimed that over 80 per cent of the families left for Jammu since June 1. “We get to hear only hollow assurances from the administration. We do not feel safe after the recent killings. Out of the 96 families living in the Mattan colony, only a dozen are left behind. They too will leave this place in coming days,” said a Pandit employee, on the condition of anonymity.
