Within months of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits the Government, whether out of misplaced optimism to placate and appease the terrorists or with deliberate intent, started recruiting and promoting Muslims to the posts and positions vacated by the Kashmiri Pandits. This has boosted the sinister designs of the terrorists to discourage and thwart the minority Kashmiri Pandit community to return to the valley for it has neither the jobs for livelihood nor the houses for shelter left behind.

So a tragedy which began with religious persecution and genocide, climaxing with the exodus of the community, has now attained colossal dimensions . This ethno-religious minority is presently going through a grim battle for survival and facing the torment of a bleak and uncertain future. Having been forced to live under torn and tattered tents, in ramshackle camps or in one room tenements and stables vacated by cows and buffaloes and rented at exorbitant prices, they are subject to the vagaries of a harsh climate, a hostile populace and an indifferent and callous administration. They have to go through a tortuous procedure to establish their credentials as exiles to be entitled to a meagre relief and measly rations for which they have to queue up for long hours and face untold miseries and humiliation to satisfy the whims and moods of relief commissioners and their minions. They have become the victims of bureaucratic bungling and corruption. They are pawns in the hands of political parties and power brokers. They are being pushed around and harassed for demanding their justful rights; and kicked, cane-charged and arrested for raising their voice against a deaf administration. Thus they have been reduced to abject poverty and a state of utter helplessness and apathy. Their greatest tragedy is that they have become exiles in their own land, aliens in their own country which they inhabited for thousands of years.