Well over a decade after they made Jammu their new home, the Hindu Pandits who fled the Kashmir Valley to escape Islamist militants are finding the hospitality of the local Hindus dramatically waning.

Indeed, in many cases, the decreasing hospitality has given way to outright hostility. Some local Hindu families have forbidden their boys and girls from marrying into Kashmiri Pandit families.

It is a scenario that could not even have been imagined in 1990, when large groups of Pandits began arriving here from the Kashmir Valley alleging attacks by the Pakistan-backed separatist guerrillas.

Many of them found refuge with friends. Many more moved into refugee camps, becoming to the world at large the ugly side of Kashmiri separatism. Initially, there was a lot of sympathy for them.

Now some in Jammu are even demanding that the Pandits go back to the Kashmir Valley.

"Kashmiri Pandits belong to the Valley and they must go there. All efforts should be directed towards this," retired engineer B.K. Suri openly said at a seminar here Friday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement here earlier this month that two-room tenements would be constructed for the Pandits has drawn flak.

"Kashmiri Pandits should not be settled in Jammu. It would disturb the harmony and peace of the Jammu region," warned Uday Chand of the Panthers Party.

The previous harmony is already under strain.

A Sikh lawyer has been dispossessed of his property by his parents for marrying a Pandit girl.

The doctor parents of the man did not accept the marriage, the outcome of a five-year-long affair, not because he married without their consent, but because he married a Pandit.

There are cases of families even splitting because of Pandit-Jammu tensions.

A Punjabi family warned its son against marrying a Pandit.

"If you want to have an affair, we don't mind, but if you want to marry the girl, out you go," the boy was told in clear terms.

Herein lies the dilemma: Jammu boys prefer the fair complexioned Pandit girls to young Jammu women. 

The growing tensions have made Jammu residents - Hindus and Muslims - become wary of Pandits.

"We have woken up to the manipulative ways of the community. The way they push their way up by any means has caused social consternation," alleged Rajinder Singh, a leader of Jammu University students. "Jammu for Jammuites!" is his cry.

The Pandit community is not unaware of these trends. Panun Kashmir, one of the leading groups of Kashmiri Pandits, is trying to build bridges with the people of Jammu.

"We have started interacting with the social, political ad business leaders of Jammu to allay their fears. We are not competitors but a complementary element," said Panun Kashmir president Ajay Chrungoo.

Unfortunately, that does not seem to cut much ice here.

--Indo-Asian News Service