Displaced Kashmiri Pandits have gone through one traumatic episode after another since 1990. Now an insult has been added to their injury: the power supply to their camps in Jammu was disconnected for failure to pay the electricity tariff.

No one could recall the last time when the Pandits had been slapped with power bills since their migration in 1990.

The Pandits have staged multiple protests during the past three days and blocked the national highway in Jammu on Monday evening.

They said the power supply was snapped from Saturday evening to 6pm on Sunday after they refused to pay the electricity charges. The supply was restored at night following the protests.

Kashmiri Pandits have largely been the most vocal supporters of the BJP and the administration run from Delhi but have also borne the brunt of some of the government policies — along with militant atrocities — since the special status was scrapped in 2019.

The displaced Pandits are now seething at the government's decision to levy electricity charges.

“We are homeless and have been living in migrant camps in Jammu against our will. We did not leave the Valley on our own. If we were exempt for 33 years from paying power charges, why are we being forced to pay it now?” community leader Pyarelal Thusoo, who lives at Jagti migrant camp, told The Telegraph.

“Top government officials led by Jammu deputy commissioner (Anvy Lavasa) visited our camp today (Tuesday) for a meeting where we iterated our stand that we will not pay power charges — simply because we are not in a position to do so,” he added.

Thusoo said 7,000 Kashmiri Pandit families are living in five migrant camps in Jammu.

The controversy broke after Jammu Power Development Corporation Limited (JPDCL) announced its decision to charge power consumers living in migrant camps.

Officials said electricity bills in the migrant camps were earlier covered under the security-related expenditure (SRE).

Relief commissioner (migrants) K.K. Sidha said they were informed by the Jammu and Kashmir government in April that the Union home ministry had refused to reimburse the electricity expenditure under the SRE.

On May 23, the JPDCL issued an order to charge consumers living in the camps.

The chairman of the All Party Action Committee Migrant Camps, H.N. Raina, has warned of intensified protests if their demand for waiving power dues was not met.

Besides free accommodation, every displaced Pandit family is entitled to free ration and Rs 13,000 cash assistance per month.

Thusoo said charging them for electricity would be a huge burden on their limited income.

“We want the government to prepare a viable return-and-rehabilitation policy for us as we are willing to go back to Kashmir. Meanwhile, electricity consumption should not be charged. If the government persists, we will lead a protest all the way to Srinagar’s Lal Chowk,” he said.

Another Pandit said the government had failed to ensure a secure environment in Kashmir as targeted killings have continued. “In Jammu, too, there is no respite for us,” he said.

In March, thousands of Pandit government employees, who were posted in the Valley under a return-and-rehabilitation policy, were forced to call off their 10-month strike after the government refused to accept their demand for relocation to Jammu. They had started the protest following a spate of targeted killings in the Valley.

The employees had said they were financially crippled and were forced to “surrender” as the government refused to pay them their salaries. For months, they raised slogans against the government and the BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which apparently made the government show no mercy.