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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
Panun Kashmir General Secretary Ramesh Manvati on Saturday welcomed the results of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly election underscoring it was against militancy and a 'slap on the face of secessionist forces'.
"But the biggest challenge is for the new state government to ensure that these forces [the militants and separatists] do not make a resurgence," Manvati told rediff.com.
"Since the Congress and the People's Democratic Party are poised to form the government, we hope that our community's rehabilitation in the state will be done without further delay," he said.
He drew attention to 1986 when the Congress had allegedly failed to prevent communal riots against Kashmiri Pandits in Anantnag and expressed the apprehension that the party 'continues in its old ways'.
"The PDP too is said to be soft on the militants and, therefore it is our fervent hope that the systematic ethnic cleansing of our community members witnessed in J&K in the past will not be repeated," he said.
He hoped the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Jammu State Morcha would analyse their electoral mistakes and go about regaining the confidence of the J&K electorate.
When told that Kashmiris by and large had resoundingly rejected the trifurcation of the state, which Panun the Kashmir was pushing for, he asked, "Why do you ignore the hundreds of thousands who are in favour of it?"
"Despite our untold miseries, we are intent in starting our lives afresh and like the rest of the people in the state, justice should not only be done but seen to be done to us," he added.
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