Statehood Cannot Become a Substitute for Justice to Kashmiri Pandit Victims
25/09/2026
Mr. Omar Abdullah,
Chief Minister, J&K,
You said in the Assembly today: “Not half statehood. Not curtailed statehood. Not statehood stripped of essential powers.”
The Kashmiri Pandit Conference (KPC), representing the voice of the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community, asks you a simple but fundamental question:
Where was this same urgency when Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of their ancestral homeland, their homes and properties were abandoned, their temples and cultural institutions were devastated, and thousands of families were forced to live in exile for decades?
You speak of restoring “full statehood.” We speak of restoring the rights, dignity, security and civilisational existence of a community that was uprooted from Kashmir.
The J&K Assembly has adopted a resolution seeking the immediate restoration of full statehood, while referring to the Assembly resolutions of 2000 and 2024. The 2000 resolution concerned greater autonomy, while the November 2024 resolution concerned the restoration of special status.
Therefore, Mr. Chief Minister, do not ask the Kashmiri Pandit community to forget the political history behind these resolutions merely because the word “statehood” is now at the centre of the debate.
We have a few fundamental questions for you:
1. If restoration of statehood is an urgent constitutional and political priority, where does the safe, dignified and honourable rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits figure in your political priority list?
2. Why is there such political urgency for restoring the former administrative status, but comparatively little urgency for restoring the rights of people who were forced out of their homes?
3. Can statehood be discussed as though the last three decades of Kashmir’s history never happened?
4. Will your government unequivocally support recognition of the atrocities and suffering endured by Kashmiri Pandits, protection of their indigenous rights, restoration of their immovable properties, preservation of their temples and shrines, and their secure rehabilitation in Kashmir?
5. Most importantly: Will you support the KP/KPC demand for a One Place Settlement—Kashyap Bhoomi—for the displaced Kashmiri Pandit population, with security and constitutional and institutional guarantees, along with infrastructure, employment, education and healthcare?
6. If the Government and the J&K Assembly are genuinely concerned about the rights of the people of J&K, why has the J&K Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sales) Act, 1997 not been implemented with the same urgency and in its true spirit?
Why are displaced Kashmiri Pandits still compelled to approach government offices, courts and authorities for protection of properties that the law itself was enacted to preserve and protect?
Why this apparent disparity in urgency? Why should a Kashmiri Pandit victim have to struggle for decades to protect ancestral property while political resolutions are passed with extraordinary speed on other issues?
Mr. Chief Minister Sahib, statehood without justice for the victims cannot be presented as the completion of Kashmir’s democratic journey.
You repeatedly speak about the “people of J&K.” Kashmiri Pandits are also people of J&K. We are not a footnote to Kashmir’s history. We are an indigenous community of Kashmir with a documented civilisational, cultural and spiritual connection with the Valley spanning thousands of years.
If you demand that the Government of India should “honour its commitment,” then Kashmiri Pandits and KPC ask you to demonstrate the same principle within J&K:
Honour the commitments made to displaced Kashmiri Pandits.
Honour their right to return with dignity and security.
Honour their property rights.
Honour their temples, shrines and cultural heritage.
Honour their political and constitutional concerns.
Honour the victims before speaking only of restoring political powers.
And let there be no ambiguity.
Kashmiri Pandits and KPC do not oppose the democratic aspirations of any section of J&K. But the Kashmiri Pandit community cannot accept a political narrative in which statehood becomes the beginning and end of every discussion, while the victims of the exodus are expected to remain permanently displaced.
Mr. Chief Minister Sahib, Kashmir cannot be politically restored while its displaced indigenous people remain physically, socially and emotionally exiled from their ancestral land.
Kashmiri Pandits and KPC therefore call upon the Chief Minister and every political party in the J&K Assembly to come out clearly on the following:
1. Do you support a secure One Place Settlement—Kashyap Bhoomi—for the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community in the Kashmir Valley, enabling the community to live together and preserve its religion, culture, ethos, festivals and way of life?
2. Do you support the restoration of their properties and protection of their rights?
3. Do you support recognition of the atrocities and suffering endured by the community and the grant of appropriate indigenous-community protections?
4. Do you support their dignified, secure and irreversible rehabilitation?
Let the Assembly debate these questions with the same urgency with which it debates statehood.
The Kashmiri Pandit community has waited for justice for more than three decades. We will not allow our history, our suffering or our legitimate political concerns to be buried under the rhetoric of statehood.
Kashmir belongs to all its citizens, with the indigenous Kashmiri Pandit community being an integral and inseparable part of Kashmir’s history, heritage and society.
Kashmiri Pandits must remain an essential part of every meaningful discussion concerning Kashmir—inside the Assembly, outside the Assembly, and at every level of public discourse.
From
[Kundan Kashmiri]
Sevak, Kashmir Watcher & President Kashmiri Pandit Conference ( KPC)
Mobile No 8802167955
E-mail --- [email protected]
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