Jammu, Mar 23: The state government on Tuesday came out with the figure in which it claimed that in total 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed since 1989 in militancy related violence.
Giving details in the legislative assembly, minister for revenue, relief and rehabilitation, Raman Bhalla said since 1989, 219 Kashmiri Pandits have been killed and ex-gratia relief of Rs one lakh each has been disbursed among the next of kin of them.
“Out of the total 219 killings, at least 129 were witnessed between March 1989 and December 31, 1990,” Bhalla added.
Bhalla said at least 38,000 families, including 34,202 Pandit, 2,168 Muslim and 1,749 Sikh families have migrated from the Valley to other parts of the country.
Replying to a question by Syed Basharat Bukhari, during the Question Hour,  Bhalla said an amount of Rs 39,64,91838 has been paid as compensation to the Kashmiri Pandits, whose properties were damaged since the eruption of militancy.
The minister informed the House that 808 Kashmir Pandit families, comprising 3445 souls were still living in the Valley.
“At least 17 temples were under the occupation of security forces,” he added.
The statement regarding occupation of the temples, however, invited criticism from CPI-M MLA MY Tarigami following which the minister rectified his statement and said, “I mean 17 temples are being protected by the security forces”.
Independent MLA from Langate Abdul Rashid also sought a Bill for protection of temples across Kashmir Valley. 
Responding to a supplementary by Choudhary Zulfikar Ali, he informed the House the government has put a case with the Centre for giving relief to the migrants of Rajouri and Poonch at par with the migrants of the Kashmir Valley.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST