On September 26th, 2008 scores of Kashmiri Hindus demonstarted outside the United Nations Office in New York [USA].
Some of the demands of Kashmiri Pandits to the UN were :
- Declare Kashmiri Hindu community as Internally Displaced People (IDP). The Human Rights Working Group on Minorities in Geneva has since recognized Kashmiri Hindus, formally, as a Reverse Minority. The use of the insulting term ‘Migrants’ for this forcibly exiled community may be removed from all records and communications relating to us hence forth.
- Direct the Government of India to set up a ‘Commission of Enquiry’ to establish the causes that led to the selective and targeted killings of Kashmiri Hindus and their subsequent forced exile, and appropriate the responsibility and punish the guilty.
- Direct the Government of India to ensure adequate protection to the residual Kashmiri Hindu population currently living in the Kashmir valley.
- Direct the Government of India to restore Kashmiri Hindus’ political and economic rights that would give them equal status rather than a second class citizenship in their native land of Kashmir. Share of Kashmiri Hindu jobs in government bureaucracy, placement in state supported professional educational institutes and the representation in the state assembly has steadily diminished to virtually nothing in the last two decades.
- Grant funds to Kashmiri Hindus for the preservation and documentation of relics of Kashmiri Hindu heritage and culture.
- Direct the Government of India to hand over the management of Kashmiri Hindu religious shrines, icons and cultural centers to Kashmiri Hindu leadership.
It is further requested that the United Nations Human Rights Commission may put on record these Human Rights Violations by Pakistan and its agents, and Pakistan be declared a terrorist state.
The complete memorandum can be downloaded by clicking here iakf-un-memo-sept262008
For more info , log into www.iakf.org
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