Jammu, Aug 2: Each morning Totaram Bhat got up and looked at the small hill close to the Jagti migrant settlement, thinking it was the ridge that formed the boundary of his ancestral village in the Anantnag district of south Kashmir. He died last month, firmly convinced that he had finally returned to his home in the valley.
Bhat’s story is not the lone one from the Jagti satellite township, which is situated 30 km from the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Many residents who had lived there for nearly three decades, including Madhusudan Zutshi and Jankinath Bhat, spent their last years dealing with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, caught between the memories of their former homes and the harsh truth of their displacement.
They died after an endless wait, without ever managing to return home.
According to lawyer Vishwa Ranjan Pandita, the tragedy experienced by Kashmiri Pandits who lived in the township following their mass exodus after terrorism broke out in the Kashmir Valley between 1989 and 1990 has now developed into a long-term fight against neglect on the part of the state.
He pointed out that although the township was built around 2010 with the intention of providing safer and more dignified housing, it has in fact become a symbol of deteriorating infrastructure and unfulfilled promises.
A prominent organisation of the Kashmiri Pandits, Panun Kashmir, is at present making preparations to take legal action, citing the “failure” of various governments to maintain the housing units built for the displaced community.
Panun Kashmir Chairman Tito Ganju said that the bad condition of Jagti township and the other camps “has made the rehabilitation of the victims and survivors of the Kashmiri Hindu genocide a serious public safety issue”, pointing out that the risk of a preventable disaster increases with each monsoon season.
As Ganju pointed out, the abolition of the Engineering Wing of the Relief Department has seriously affected the supervision of important projects.
“We are demanding the immediate reestablishment of the Engineering Wing, urgent repairs, and a structural safety review of all the residential blocks; if this is not done, Panun Kashmir will ask the High Court for appropriate intervention,” he said.
The township includes 4,242 two-room flats distributed among 24 buildings and provides accommodation for about 5,600 families.
Each family has a unit of 495 sq ft which consists of a bedroom, a kitchen and a lobby. Even though there is serious overcrowding and families are growing, about 80 flats are still unoccupied and more than half of the 200 commercial shops in the township have never been assigned.
Locals say that the buildings are rapidly falling into disrepair — the outer plaster is coming off while the inside walls are affected by continuous water seepage. The condition gets worse during the monsoon when the leaking roofs result in serious water accumulation inside.
The government has not kept its promises, said T K Kaul (72), a retired official from the Accountant General’s office who was born in Rainawari in downtown Srinagar. “Our situation is bad since not a single one of our complaints has been dealt with over the last ten years.”
“Authorities replaced the damaged doors after repeated requests, but it was poorly done and inferior material was used. The roofs leak, the buildings require urgent repair, and our block has not had drinking water for four months,” he said.
It is now an ongoing ordeal for several generations. Tej Krishan Kaul (52), who is originally from Bijbehara, described the bureaucratic nightmare which left his family in a difficult situation. Having lost his brother to crossfire in Kashmir, he was then given a housing unit.
“Three years ago officials took my documents on the grounds that I had only a temporary registration,” Kaul said. “I live with my wife, three children and my elderly mother, and we have no income from which to draw. I have asked for assistance everywhere, but my appeals have been ignored.”
Activists and community leaders claim that political parties have reduced the displaced community to nothing more than a political tool.
Vinod Kumar, who is known in the area as “Appu” and is a shopkeeper in the township, said: “We are being used by the political parties as a vote bank, but no actual measures are taken to rehabilitate us.
“The things that concern us every day — such as the need for building repairs, shortages of water and unreliable electricity — are completely ignored, and there is a strong feeling of despondency all through the township.”
Sunil Pandita, a community activist from Handwara in Kupwara district who migrated in 1990, lamented, “Lord Ram’s exile lasted for 14 years, whereas we have been away from our homes for 36 years and there seems to be no end to our suffering.”
Pandita pointed out that although the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had started the housing project and had announced a package of 6,000 migrant jobs in 2009, there was no work under successive governments on the transit accommodation in Kashmir meant for the beneficiaries of the Prime Minister’s package.
Residents alleged that their peaceful demonstrations asking for basic services such as water and electricity are also dealt with high-handedness.
Add to this the fact that government financial assistance has not kept up with inflation, they said.
At present, each registered relief recipient gets 9 kilograms of rice and a monthly cash payment of Rs 3,200 per person — a sum which residents stress is not enough to meet basic living expenses, healthcare and education.
“Citizens turn to the government for assistance, but no single problem has recently been solved,” said B J Bhat, who has resided there for nine years. “Although we are thankful to the Congress government which first provided the flats and introduced the relief measures, the present administration has entirely let us down.”
Attempts to contact officials for a response did not yield result.
Reflecting the sense of despair in the community, some have now asked the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in a petition through their advocate Vishwa Ranjan Pandita, that it would be more humane for the government to put them to death quickly rather than have them endure such daily suffering.
The petition points out structural faults in housing units, persistent water seepage and unsanitary conditions, stating that these dangers have been neglected for more than five years because of the supposed lack of a specific repair budget.
It also highlights serious problems with connectivity, particularly regarding the important road linking Nagrota and Jagti, which has had “dangerous potholes for eight years”.
Residents claim they have been treated unfairly, pointing out that while the roads throughout Jammu have been quickly resurfaced after the last assembly elections, their own vital link road has been ignored on the grounds of a supposed lack of funds.
The petition calls on the NHRC to take urgent action, summon the relevant officials and order immediate structural repairs to the flats and resurfacing of the Nagrota-Jagti road in order to avoid further loss of life.
