Only a matter of time before KPs return: Pandit Panch

Srinagar:  Makhan Lal Zutshi, newly elected Pandit Panch of Tahab village in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, is confident about the return of fellow community members to Kashmir Valley.“Slowly, things are moving towards better and it is only a matter of time before the community members who migrated from here return back,” Zutshi, who was elected unopposed to Panch post in the recently concluded pachayat polls in Pulwama block, told.    “About twelve hundred pandit youths were appointed recently. While they are working in the Kashmir valley, their families too have started to come and will realize that the situation is normal here,” he says.    Zutshi, a retired engineer who stayed back in Kashmir rather than joining his community during the mass migration in the 1990s, also has a message for fellow community members who are living in various parts of India and abroad. “The atmosphere is same as prevailed in 1980s and before. Come and enjoy as there is no threat, no harassment…We are living equally brothers with Muslims and Sikhs and help each other in the hour of need.”    After winning the panch elections unopposed, Zutshi also filed nominations for Sarpanch post with a large number of Muslim neighbours actively campaigning for him. But he failed to win as ruling party candidate “managed” victory. However, the loss has not shattered the belief of the Kashmiri and he vows to keep up his fight for needy people in the area as Panch. “I am a social worker and will continue with the services for the poor,” said Zutshi. 36 Pandit families left Tahab Village while only seven families stayed back with their Muslims and Sikh community neighbours.  Zuthshi is the third Kashmiri Pandit elected as panch in Kashmir valley in eleven phases of the sixteen round panchayat polls. Earlier, a 52-year-old Kashmiri Pandit woman, Aasha Jee, was voted as a panch by a chiefly Muslim village in north Kashmir’s Tangmarg block and Prithvinath won in Panzath Wanpora area in Qazigund. Prithvinath’s family is lone Kashmiri Pandith family in the area.