Source: NDTV.com
NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 6, 2003: The Jammu and Kashmir government is working on a plan to develop an area in Anantnag district, in the Kashmir Valley and 40 miles southeast of Srinigar, for resettling around 300,000 displaced Kashmiri Pandits to the valley. The government plans to build around 500 apartment flats with provision of security and essential facilities in the vicinity of Mattan temple, a pilgrimage center in Anantnag, for the Pandits to stay until they can repair their own houses. If the experiment succeeds here, it will be replicated at another prominent pilgrimage center — Kheer Bhavani. The Mufti Sayeed-led state government is also making efforts to persuade the displaced people to return. About 300,000 Pandits, constituting almost the entire community, moved out of Kashmir valley in late 1989 after militancy erupted there. Many have been living in squalid camps around Jammu for more than a decade.