NEW DELHI: A Kashmiri organisation Sunday welcomed the Centre’s move to ban separatist organisation JKLF and holdingits founder, Yasin Malik, responsible for the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits.
The Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora, a joint initiative of Kashmiri Pandit organisations in India and abroad, has been persistently and vehemently demanding the formal acknowledgement that what the Kashmiri Pandits suffered was nothing but genocide, a statement said.
The organisation thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “his bold and honeststep” in recognising that the militant movement in “Kashmir is not about liberation, not about economic suffering, not about justice but a theo-fascist movement which hasbrought great suffering to the land and its people,” the statement added.
“It is so heartening to see that our Prime Minister means business as far as dealing with Pakistan’s machinations in Kashmir is concerned,” the statement reads.
The “victory” (ban on JKLF) has been achieved because of the sacrifices and hard work of the entire Kashmiri Pandit community, it said.
The GKPD has presented a MoU to Home Minister Rajnath Singh inSeptember, 2018, which articulated that the first and foremost demand of the KP community was to recognise Genocide and Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits, the statement said.
The Yasin Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was banned on Friday for “promoting” secession of the militancy-hit state from the Union of India.
Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba had said the JKLF wasbanned as the government has a policy of zero tolerance against terrorism.
The JKLF has been at the forefront of separatist activities in J-K and was involved in the killings of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989 leading to their exodus from the valley, he had said.
“Murders of Kashmiri Pandits by JKLF in 1989 triggered their exodus from the valley. Malik was the mastermind behind the purging of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir Valley and is responsible for their genocide,” Gauba said.