Hizbul Mujahideen invites Pandits home, announces 'Sikh brigade'

SRINAGAR/JAMMU: Terrorist outfit Hizbul Mujahideen has urged migrant Kashmiri Pandits, who were forced to flee the Valley in the early 1990s after the eruption of violence and their targeted killings, to return home, assuring them protection. However, the offer left the Kashmiri Pandit community appalled and enraged.

"We request Kashmiri Pandits to return to their homes. We take responsibility for their safety," said self-styled Hizbul commander Zakir Rashid Bhat, the successor to slain Burhan Wani, in a video message on Tuesday .

In a bizarre argument, the Hizbul commander claimed that the Pandits were forced out of the Valley under a government strategy to target Muslims in an Operation Bluestar like strike.

"Many youths have taken to jihad, snatched weapons and joined our ranks.We will try and make an exclusive group for Sikhs in the outfit," he said.

Rejecting outright the "safe return offer", Pandit organisations said Kashmir "historically belongs" to them and they would not return based on the agenda set by separatists or Pakistan, but on their own terms and conditions and at a time chosen by the community .

Sections of Panun Kashmir and All Party Migrants Coordination Committee (APMCC) said what the terror-mongers really want is another exodus of the state's minority community. Panun Kashmir functionary Ajay Chrungoo said, "But who are these elements to make us a return offer?"

APMCC's chairperson and activist Vinod Pandit said, "We don't need 'terms' from self-styled commanders. Kashmir is ours and we (Kashmiris) would return on our own."