MP wants to help militancy victims, but Govt sets terms

SRINAGAR, MAY 7: A tailor is caught in cross-fire just outside his residence at Ishbar locality of Srinagar. He escapes the bullets and r...

SRINAGAR, MAY 7: A tailor is caught in cross-fire just outside his residence at Ishbar locality of Srinagar. He escapes the bullets and rushes to his home where he collapses after a severe heart attack. Sole bread-earner of a family of eight that include five unmarried daughters and a minor son, his family has not been able to claim even the routine ex-gratia relief of Rs 1 lakh as he was not killed by the bullets. His widow and two elder daughters are now washing dishes to earn two meals a day for the family.

A labourer in Soura is picked up allegedly by a group of counter-insurgents, who were accompanying security forces, for being a militant sympathiser. He is tortured in custody, the left portion of his body is paralysed, and he is released. He too is the only source of income for his family of four, including two daughters aged four and six years respectively. A bureaucrat’s wife donates a wheelchair, to help him gain some mobility. He cannot claim government help as he is not a victim of militant violence.

A non-Kashmiri Rajya Sabha member feels the pain of these victims and decides to provide Rs 50 lakh towards rehabilitation. But the Central Government says no. It puts limitations and wants selective rehabilitation’ — only victims of militant firing, and that too only those who have filed a report with the police, should be helped, it says.

Parliamentarian Kuldeep Nayar decided to provide half of his Constituency Development Fund to the district magistrate, Srinagar, for the rehabilitation of victims of violence in general, but bureaucratic wrangles have come in the way — the Director, Member Parliament, Local Area Development Scheme at Delhi has asked them not to go ahead until it fits into the government’s scheme of things. And the government is clear — a first information report registered in the police station clearly indicating they are victims of militants is the criterion, and nothing else.

Interestingly, a survey of the victims of violence in Srinagar was conducted voluntarily by a noted social worker, Yasmeen Ali, who identified around 300 cases across the district, that too, who within the monthly Rs 2,000 income slab. The families to be rehabilitated were selected only on the basis of how much worst they had been hit, without any compartmentalisation into different categories, an official working on this project said. Sources said the authorities here had decided to work on the rehabilitation of violence-hit families with less than Rs 2,000 monthly income.

The State Government was interested in securing the money for the Rehabilitation Council for Militancy Victims, set up to help the victims of insurgency. But Nayar refused, as he did not want to provide his Constituency Development Fund for selective help.

“I don’t want selective help. All victims are the same and the help should reach everybody,” he said, and added if the Centre decided to forcibly limit the scheme to the victims of militant fire, he would withdraw the money. “I am sure I will be able to convince the government,” he said.

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The district authorities in Srinagar had decided not to provide cash assistance to the victims but arrange for employment generating schemes. “We were planning to start diary farms, institutes promoting handicrafts, typing and shorthand as also computer training for the victims’ families,” said Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, Tanveer Jehan.