India's ruling party to revive plan for Hindu settlements in occupied Kashmir

Nearly 7 million Muslims in occupied valley surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Indian troops

SRINAGAR/ NEW DELHI: A leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that his Hindu nationalist party is committed to helping bring back some of the estimated 200,000-300,000 Hindus who fled Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) in the aftermath of an armed revolt that began in 1989.

“Their fundamental rights of returning to the valley have to be respected. At the same time, we have to provide them proper security,” Ram Madhav, BJP national general secretary responsible for Kashmir, said in an interview, referring to the Kashmiri Hindus, also known as Pandits.

Nearly 7 million people live in the occupied valley, 97% of them Muslims, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Indian troops and armed police deployed to quell an uprising against the New Delhi’s rule.

About 50,000 people have been killed in the conflict in the last three decades, according to official figures.

Madhav said that the previous BJP-backed government in occupied Kashmir had considered building either separate or mixed resettlement townships, but had been unable to make headway. “No consensus could be built around anyone's view.”

India’s federal home ministry, which would be involved in any such building activity in the valley, did not respond to a request for comment.

A blueprint unveiled by the state government in 2015 had proposed self-contained, heavily guarded colonies for returning Pandits, complete with schools, shopping malls, hospitals and playgrounds.