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A meeting of the Kashmiri Pandit community was organized to discuss the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections. In this meeting, it has been decided that no Kashmiri Pandit will participate in the assembly elections to be held for the first time after the removal of Article 370 from the state. Attended by a large number of Kashmiri Pandit leaders, it focused on the moral and political dilemma of participating in an election that ignored the community’s demand for recognition of their genocide and the consequences of their forced migration from their homeland.
We have been an exiled community for decades, a lawyer said, adding that autocratic governments and political parties use our migration and our suffering as talking points during elections. Also, in a meeting of Kashmiri Pandits, constitutional expert and lawyer Tito Ganju said that when it comes to our demands for justice, including recognition of our genocide, provision of all facilities to return our motherland with dignity and our restoration. Right, then we have to deal with silence. By participating in these elections, we will help the very system that keeps denying us. This election is not about us and we must stand firm in our resolve not to trust a system that tries to silence us.
This was emphasized
Lawyer Tito Ganju asserted that abstaining from the elections would send a clear message to the political establishment that Kashmiri Pandits would not be used as mere pawns in the larger political game by ignoring their grievances. Panun Kashmir President Ajay Churangu said that the system wants to erase us by holding these elections without paying attention to the genocide and forced displacement of Kashmiri Hindus.
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Churangu also said that this is not just a political decision but for the current situation and this electoral system is not about our inclusion in the democratic fabric. This is about strengthening our boycott. If we participate, we will be complicit in pushing ourselves into this. The meeting decided that the community would refrain from participating in the next elections until their genocide was formally acknowledged.
