An organisation representing the people displaced from the PoK today staged a protest here, alleging malpractice and harassment by the Jammu and Kashmir government officials while clearing their cases for relief announced by the Centre.
The protesters assembled under the banner of 'SOS International' outside the Provincial Rehabilitation Office (PRO) at Wazarat Road here and staged the demonstration.
They alleged that the officials are demanding bribe to pursue their relief cases and are harassing them.
The Centre had sanctioned Rs 2,000 crore relief for 'one time settlement' of the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) displaced persons on November 7, 2015.
The SOS International claimed that after the lapse of more than two-and-a-half years, only one sixth of the families have been covered till date.
PoK DPs are being duped by officials of PRO as they ask for bribe for every single task. We are being asked for money for getting displaced person certified copy, while the forms that are free of cost are being sold to them, SOS International Chairman Rajiv Chuni, who led the protest, alleged.
He claimed that the PRO office has been transformed into a "hub of malpractices as underprivileged community" that has been waiting for justice for the last seven decades.
Chuni said they have raised the issue with concerned higher ups but no action was taken so far, prompting them to come on the roads.
He also demanded reconstitution of the committee which was formed to speed up their cases and said it is flaunting rules and coming out with new directives under which maternal granddaughters are kept out from the relief package.
I want to know that in which rule book such condition is incorporated that maternal granddaughters cannot have any right in the property whose maternal grandfather did not have sons, Chuni said.
He urged Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to look into the matter and take appropriate action against the corrupt who have brought bad name to PRO.
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