Kashmiri Pandit fraternity offers sweets to each other in Mansarovar.

JAIPUR: Terming Centre’s move regarding Article 370 as ‘historic,’ the Kashmiri Pandit Association of Jaipur (KPAJ) on Monday said the move would bring peace in the Valley and pave the way for their return to their home.The KPAJ held a meet here to discuss how they could return and settle in their ancestral town. Jaipur is home to around 400 Kashmiri Pandits who came here from the refugee camps in Delhi in 1991-1992.Anjana Handoo, a senior faculty at Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls School, hopes to visit her ancestral house at Rainawari in Srinagar.It is not that Handoo had never visited her ancestral home, but she would like to stay there for months and spent her whole life post retirement.“For the past 30 years, my family has been living in exile in Jaipur/Delhi. Never ever in the last 30 years, I had this strong hope of living in my home state,” said Handoo. Her father owned a school in Srinagar when they fled from Srinagar.The association members have decided to pay a short visit to the Valley once the dust settles down and start the process of reclaiming their homeland in the changed scenario. “We are fully aware it may take years for us to settle down there. Our rehabilitation should be done amicably,” said KPAJ secretary Rajesh Pandita.The association members met at a private hotel in Mansarovar to celebrate the occasion. They exchanged sweets and shared their resolve to settle in their ancestral homes.The members said most of the Kashmiri women living in exile have married non-Kashmiris and had lost their right over ancestral properties forever. They passed a resolution thanking Narendra Modi and urged him to improve the security apparatus so that they can settle in the Valley peacefully.