Kashmir: Outrage over settlements for displaced Hindus

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have put separatist leaders under house arrest to prevent them from holding a silent march on Wednesday in protest at a government decision to resettle displaced Kashmiri Hindus in exclusive colonies. The BBC's Geeta Pandey reports on the controversy from Srinagar, the Muslim majority state's summer capital.

Varsha Kaul was 15 days old in April 1990 when her family fled Srinagar.
"One evening, the terrorists came to our house and surrounded it. They took away my uncle Bharat Bhushan Kaul saying they wanted to ask him some questions. They threatened to shoot anyone who intervened. Everyone was very afraid," she says.
At dawn, Kaul's body was found hanging from a tree outside their home. The 28-year-old government employee had just been engaged and was to get married a month later. n the late 1980s, an armed rebellion broke out in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, seeking independence from India. The militants often targeted the minority Hindus and attacks and threats saw most of the 350,000 Pandits, as they are also known, fleeing for safety to the Jammu region and elsewhere in India. Today, there are only 2,764 Hindus left there.
"My family was planning to go to Jammu as the situation in the valley had deteriorated. They thought they'd go for a few months and return once the situation improved. But after my uncle was killed, they performed his last rites, loaded their belongings onto a truck and left," Ms Kaul says.
"The situation here kept worsening and we could not return. We were afraid that if we came back, we would meet the same fate as my uncle."It took her 26 years to visit the valley again - I met Ms Kaul and her mother Kiran Kaul last week while they were visiting their former neighbours in their village in Budgam district, not far from Srinagar.
Although they are on a short visit, hopes have been rekindled that they can return permanently to the valley.
The state government - a coalition of India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party and the regional People's Democratic Party - has vowed to bring the Pandits back.
The authorities said they would set up secure enclaves for returning migrants where they can live safely, but the plan has hit a roadblock, with many accusing the government of trying to create "Israeli-type settlements in Palestine".