Cross-border terrorism forced 64,827 Kashmiri Pandit families to leave the Kashmir valley in the early 1990s and settle in Jammu, Delhi, and some other parts of the country, the Indian government has said. According to the annual report of India's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for 2020-21, as many as 14,091 civilians and 5,356 security force personnel lost their lives to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir in nearly three decades between the 1990s, when militancy first reared its head in the valley, and 2020.

“Militancy in Jammu and Kashmir is intricately linked with infiltration of terrorists from across the border (in Pakistan),” the report said.  Besides Hindu Kashmiri Pandits, militancy forced some Sikh and Muslim families too to migrate from Kashmir Valley to Jammu, Delhi, and other parts of the country, it said.

As per the records of registration available with the Relief and Migrant Commissioner, J&K, at present 43,618 registered Kashmiri migrant families are settled in Jammu, 19,338 families are settled in Delhi and the National Capital Region, and 1,995 families in a few other states and union territories across the country, the report quoted by PTI news agency said.

The report said that a total of 2,546 terror incidents "sponsored by Pakistan: took place in Jammu and Kashmir from 2014 to 2020, in which 481 security personnel, 215 civilians, and 1,216 terrorists were killed. There were 1,776 infiltration attempts from across the border to Jammu and Kashmir between 2014 and 2020, of which 685 were successful, the report said. 

The plight of the Kashmiri refugees was recently documented in the film "Kashmir Files" which found a lot of empathy, besides creating a huge controversy, in India and Indian diasporic circles globally. 

(SAM)