EXODUS THE TRUTH

Why did they flee? Who was respon sible? Where are they now? What needs to be done?

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

HARBHUSHAN PANDITA, 4 2

Now living in Sheikhpora, Budgam; original resident of Khunmoh, Srinagar

Fled the Valley in October 1990

Harbhushan was among the luckier 3,000 Kashmiri Pandits selected for a government job in Srinagar after the Manmohan Singh government announced a special rehabilitation package for the besieged community in 2008. He was staying in a rented house in Jammu at the time, along with his wife, daughter and aging parents. In Srinagar, however, he had to share the one-bedroom transit accommodation they gave him with four other employees. It meant his family couldn’t join him and had to stay on in Jammu.

Just 10 in 1990, he and his family, like other Pandits in the Valley, had fled to Jammu that year, abandoning their 12-bedroom house in Khunmoh, Srinagar, and their vast apple orchards. In Jammu, they lived in a temple before moving to a one-bedroom house on the city outskirts. Harbhushan believes his grandfather died of the shock of having to live in such penury. He himself had to attend an open-air school, but his academic perseverance paid offand he earned a diploma from a technical institute.