Jammu, October 14, (Scoop News)_To have on the spot assessment of the damages caused to the life and property and mass migration of effected villagers as a result of heavy mortar shelling by Pakistan Army, a team of Jammu Province Peoples Forum (JPPF) headed by its Working President M.S Katoch comprising M L Sharma, Avinash Bhatia, Amrit Magotra, R L Tandon, Balwinder Singh Bhatia, Gajan Singh Khalsa and Ved Gandotra visited different border villages in Suchetgarh sector.
While briefing media, Katoch said that firing at borders by Pakistan is not new but the intensity and spread of firing along whole the 192 Kms along the International border and cease fire line is one of the worst violations of 2003 Cease Fire Agreement by Pakistan since 1st October 2014 targeting 160 villages and 60 border outposts on the intervening night of 8th and 9th October in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts displacing more than 35000 border people is the first in the history of Indo-Pakistan skirmishes in the past. The heavy mortar shelling in the Poonch on 4th October took the toll of one Jawan while injuring the other. Similarly heavy firing on the Arnia border caused damage to roofs of houses, window panes and left villagers killed and many injured besides heavy loss due to killing of livestock.
JPPF team while interacting with the border people at Flora Village in Suchetgarh sector where three heavy mortars were fired by Pakistan on 24th August caused damage to houses and standing crops besides loss of livestock and severely injured a poor villager working as village mason to earn livelihood for his family consisting of 6 children namely Roshan S/o Shankar Dass. The splinter injury in the leg led to the amputation of leg below thigh disabling him for whole of the life and loosing the only earning member of a poor border family. The imputed disable is lingering in Amristsar Hospital for healing till date. Apathy of the Government is to give him compensation of Rs 10000/- whereas in the case of a buffalo and a goat which were also killed in the shelling, Government disbursed Rs 10000/- and Rs 400/- respectively i.e. the animal and human beings are treated alike. JPPF has demanded that the Government should bear all the expenses incurred till discharge from the Amritsar Hospital beside Government service to one of the children of the injured Roshan to run the livelihood of the family as the mortar splinter has rendered him disabled for whole of his life.
Katoch demanded due to share of relief as per flood effected people of valley or elsewhere and proper one time rehabilitation of all the effected border migrants at safer places by allotting them 10 Marlas Plot or Residential quarters as shelter camps at every time the shelling takes place where now there is no solution for this problem. Besides he demanded compensation for losses to the farmers and solving other standing issues of border refugees.
Further a team of JPPF also visited flood affected areas to distribute the relief material and also to assess the ground realities where the team found that no proper assessment has so far been carried out to give adequate relief to the victims. JPPF would also like to reiterate that it is very shameful that the Government was not able to distribute the relief to the affected people and the relief material was sent to different constituencies to influential leaders to lure the voters and to set right the same the Supreme Court has to intervene who constituted a committee to know the facts. JPPF demands stern action against the politicians who were involved in this inhuman act. JPPF also demand that all MLA’s and MLCs must contribute one month salary for the welfare of affected people
The members present in the press conference were Inderjeet Khajuria, Sardar Gajan Singh, M.L.Sharma, Amrit Magotra, Avinash Bhatia, Kamla Sharma, Rajiv Mahajan, Jagdish Sharma, R L Tandon, Gajan Singh Khalsa, Rajesh Chandan, Balvinder Bhatia and Suresh Sharma.
SOURCE http://scoopnews.in/det.aspx?q=41591