“The strategic wisdom of the central government made it ignore the simmering lava of terrorism inside. The government time and again declared victory against terrorism when terrorists were only spreading their tentacles all across,” Panun Kashmir chairman Ajay Chrungoo told reporters here. 

The mela is held every year to honour the goddess Kheer Bhawani. Pilgrims from across the country gather in the Kashmir valley to pay their respects and celebrate the festival.

In the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections for Kashmir's Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, nearly 52 per cent of the 18.36 lakh eligible voters cast their votes.

"I was denied my right to vote as my name was not on the list," said Sarlaji Tickoo, a retired government employee and a member of the group that did not migrate in the 1990s to Jammu and other places of the country like thousands of Kashmiri Pandits.

"Over 26,000 Kashmiri migrant voters will cast their ballots at special polling stations set up in Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi tomorrow.  All arrangements have been made for free and fair polling tomorrow," Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner Dr Arvind Karwani told reporters.

"A total of 25,821 Kashmiri migrants are registered as voters from Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency on May 20. Of these, 12,747 are male voters and 13,074 are female voters," Assistant Returning Officer (ARO), Migrants, Riaz Ahmed said.

Sarwanand Koul Premi, a poet and freedom fighter belonging to the Kashmiri Pandit community, and younger brother were brutally murdered by militants in 1990, according to the case proceedings uploaded on the website of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

With a sizable Pandit Diaspora community in Jammu, comprising an estimated 1.13 lakh registered Kashmiri Pandit migrant voters, their support becomes crucial in the upcoming elections. The move to align with Congress is seen as an effort to appeal to this demographic.

A large gathering of Kashmiri Pandits and locals under the banner of Vishwa Kashmiri Samaj celebrated 'Saptarishi Samvat-5100' at a function at the historic Vichar Nag temple here on Tuesday, a spokesperson of the organisation said. 

The mass exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community changed the very cultural ethos of Kashmir and there has been little turn back despite three decades having gone by since it got triggered by growing fundamentalism fuelled from across the border, Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said on Monday.