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Setting separate township not a good idea: Yogendra Yadav

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Press Trust of India Jammu
Expelled Aam Aadmi Party leader Yogendra Yadav today said that the setting up of a composite township for the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community was not a good idea.

"Kashmiri Pandits are the victims of the circumstances who have suffered a lot. I would personally say that setting up of separate townships for them (in Kashmir) is not a good idea," Yadav told reporters here today.

He said that setting up of a separate township was neither possible nor would provide security to the people living in it.

"In practicality, concentration of a community in a separate township is not a good idea... In some places in the country members of a community, members of Muslim community live in concentrated areas but they have no other option," he said.
 

He said that the Kashmiri Pandit community, which was the "victim of circumstances", must choose what was good for them.

"As I said the best idea is that let the victim choose. Kashmiri Pandits are the victim of the circumstances, it would be fair to let them choose," he said.

He said that people giving dictates on their return were further vitiating the atmosphere.

When asked whether as part of his 'swaraj samvad' he would hold discussion with the separatists in Kashmir, Yadav said that he was open to talk to anyone who approached him.

"It would be presumptuous for me to say that I would hold a dialogue with this and with that, but yes I am open to talk to anybody who wants to speak to me. We can hold dialogue with the people with whom we differ on ideology," he said.

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First Published: May 10 2015 | 8:42 PM IST

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