A Government-appointed high-level panel examining demographic changes visited the Jagti Township-the largest designated satellite settlement for displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the outskirts of Jammu city yesterday, to gather views and inputs from different sections of the population. The team also inspected a slum housing Rohingya immigrants in Narwal area of the city and met several delegations, including representatives of the Gorkha community and refugees from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK).

The delegation was apprised of a range of issues confronting Kashmiri Pandits since 1990, including inadequate water supply, roads, sanitation, accommodation, employment, implementation of relief schemes and their return. The committee later inspected the Rohingya settlement in the Narwal area of the city.

According to government data, over 13 thousand 700 foreigners, including Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi nationals, are settled in Jammu and Samba districts of Jammu and Kashmir, where their population has increased by over 6 thousand between 2008 and 2016. In March 2021, police found over 270 Rohingyas, including women and children, living illegally in Jammu city during a verification drive and lodged them in a holding centre inside the Kathua Sub-Jail.

In May this year, the Centre had constituted the high-level panel headed by Justice (Retd) Prabhakar Navlekar to study demographic changes in different parts of the country, arising from illegal immigration and other reasons, and to suggest measures to deal with these changes.