Srinagar: The reported inclination of the Central government to grant citizenship rights to over a million erstwhile West Pakistan refugees and other incentives in the light of the recommendations of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) is snowballing into a major controversy in Jammu and Kashmir.
In fact, an Amarnath land row-like situation is brewing up fast in the state where political, ethnic and regional tensions and polarisation are already taking their toll.
It is not just the separatists who have threatened to launch an agitation against the reported move.
The state’s oldest mainstream political party, the National Conference (NC), has also termed it as a deliberate attempt to alter the demography of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir and vowed to fight it tooth and nail.
Terming the recommendation of the JPC to settle the refugees permanently in J&K as anti-state, NC general secretary and former minister Ali Muhammad Sagar on Saturday said these are unacceptable.
“This is a wicked conspiracy to change the demography of Jammu and Kashmir and to alter the special status it enjoys in the Indian Union,” he said, adding, “The anti-Jammu and Kashmir elements, since the day one, have been implying different tactics to change the demography of the state and today they raked up such an issue again (sic).”
