People’s Conference President and MLA Handwara Sajad Loan has issued a deep statement in Jammu and Kashmir recently advocating immediate and full compensation of border shelling families.
After his visit to the border areas, the loan expressed deep concern over the devastating influence on local communities, emphasizing that psychological trauma is as serious as physical destruction.
Lone said, “The border areas of Jammu and Kashmir have faced brunt in large -scale collateral damage. Homes, shops and other buildings have been destroyed,” Lone said. “We all went there and could understand the feelings of pain and fear. These have been a terrible days with the family that are running away from tireless shells. Young children are afraid because their fickleness is taken away from them.”
Loan highlighted the immense challenge of reconstruction before these families, many of which have lacked resources for reconstruction of their homes.
“It takes a lifetime time for a poor man to build a house. He has gone into the house shelling. Now who will build it? Will it take the poor family to make another life to build a house?” He questioned.
The Chairman of the People’s Conference insisted that these citizens are victims of a national struggle and not personal disputes.
“Their houses were not left due to personal enmity. Their houses were stopped because their country was in war. The costs of war are to be borne by the country. Why should the costs of war be borne by poor border residents?”
Drawing from his experience in the government, Lone criticized the traditional compensation mechanism as insufficient and bureaucracy.
He said, “The traditional measures available with the government are rare to compensate and are dubbed with resentment,” he said that affected families often receive standardized, insufficient payments after navigating broad paperwork.
As a solution, he has proposed to set up a temporary institute dedicated to raising funds from both government and non-government sources, including the corporate CSR initiative.
“My assessment is that the damage runs in crores and crores. If the government has resources they should pay. If they do not have resources, they should do what the money takes to raise money,” Lone said.
Eliminating his statement with a comment towards media personalities, Lone suggested: “On a serious note we should identify the most vocal war in the news hall and request them for a month’s salary.” (KNS)