Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah

Srinagar, March 24: Only 219 Kashmiri Pandits have died during the last two decades of militancy, the Omar Abdullah government told the Assembly today, drawing scorn from the community which claims the figure is many times more.

Revenue minister Raman Bhalla said the 219 deaths at the hands of militants occurred between 1989, when the militancy started, and 2004, adding that no Pandit was killed in the last six years. These are the first government figures of casualties among Pandits, whose exodus from the Valley because of militancy has stirred debates in the state and outside.

Agnishekhar, president of Panun Kashmir Movement, a key community group, dubbed the figures political manipulation. “The purpose is to defame us, trivialise our sufferings. The fact is that no less than 1,200 Pandits were killed by militants and around 30,000 more died in exile from natural and unnatural causes.”

Estimates of casualties put out by other Pandit groups over the past few years have varied from 1,000 to 5,000.

The Pandits also disputed the figures on the scale of the exodus. Minister Bhalla said 34,202 Pandit families out of a total of 38,119 (around 1.4 lakh people) — the rest being Muslims and Sikhs — migrated to Jammu.

State relief commissioner Vinod Kaul, whose department is tasked with the head-count and helping migrants, appeared to accept that the numbers could be more. “The estimated number of migrant families registered in Jammu and elsewhere is around 57,000 (most of them Pandits) but there are families who have not registered themselves with our department,” he said. That may put the number of registered Pandits in the entire country at close to 2.5 lakh. Around 808 families — 3,445 people — still live in the Valley.

Agnishekhar alleged that the migration figures were also manipulated. “We believe the number is 3.5 lakh. But these are the Pandits and their children who migrated after 1989, which we call the seventh migration. Many Pandits migrated before that as well and we believe our number globally is around seven lakh,” he said.

The government has initiated steps for the return and rehabilitation of Pandits. Last year, the Centre announced a special package of Rs 1,618.40 crore for the community. The state, on its part, recently created 3,000 posts for the community, and asked recruiting agencies to start the process of selecting the candidates.