Share your story and shine at JK Monitor!🌟 Welcome to JK Monitor, where every story matters and every achievement is celebrated! We invite you to share the remarkable journey of your life and showcase your accomplishments to the world. Join our exclusive interviews that honor exceptional individuals just like you. JAMMU: Girdhari Lal Raina, former MLC and spokesperson of BJP JK-UT, has strongly condemned the registration of an FIR against peaceful protestors belonging to the displaced Kashmiri Hindu community. He described the action as “deeply unfortunate, insensitive, and vindictive,” particularly because several individuals who were not even present at the protest site have reportedly been included among the accused.
“This is nothing short of vendetta against a community that has already suffered decades of displacement, neglect, and institutional apathy,” Raina stated. The former MLC asserted that the debate surrounding ration integration under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in relation to the displaced Kashmiri Hindu community is not merely about food grains or administrative procedure. At its core, he said, the issue concerns identity, dignity, constitutional protection, and the unresolved status of a community that continues to live in exile decades after displacement.
“What appears to the administration as a routine welfare transition is experienced by the community as yet another step toward institutional invisibilization,” he added. GL Raina emphasized that the displaced community does not oppose food security. “What the community resists is the gradual dilution of its legal and historical identity as a people who suffered targeted displacement, ethnic cleansing, loss of homeland, and prolonged exile,” he said.
He further observed that the apprehension within the community is both genuine and historically rooted. “Once absorbed into generic welfare structures as ‘normal beneficiaries,’ there is a growing fear that the State may slowly absolve itself of its larger constitutional and moral obligations relating to rehabilitation, restitution, and recognition,” he stated.
Raina noted that this fear has emerged from a long history of administrative neglect experienced by the displaced community under successive governments. “The NFSA controversy exposes a deeper structural problem — the absence of a dedicated institutional mechanism capable of understanding the unique humanitarian and constitutional position of internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus. Consequently, every issue becomes adversarial. Authorities interpret matters narrowly through procedure, while the community invokes broader principles of constitutional justice, human dignity, and historical accountability,” he said.
Demanding immediate corrective measures, GL Raina called for the withdrawal of the FIR registered against peaceful protestors and urged the administration to suspend the NFSA integration process until adequate and acceptable safeguards are evolved in consultation with representatives of the displaced community. “Democratic protest cannot be criminalized, especially when it concerns a displaced community struggling to preserve its identity and constitutional safeguards,” he added.
