New Delhi, Oct 27: Hitting out at the Centre over the alleged exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is enjoying power while members of the minority community continue to be refugees in their own country.
The BJP has ruined the good work done by the UPA, the former Congress chief said.
As terrorists carried out a number of targeted killings recently, 10 Kashmiri Pandit families left their village, Choudharygund, in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district out of fear and reached Jammu, according to residents.
Members of the minority community, who have since been camping in Jammu, ruled out any plan to return to the Valley.
However, authorities in Shopian have attempted to put up a brave face by claiming no exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has taken place from the south Kashmir district.
"There have been 30 targeted killings in Kashmir this year. The exodus of Pandits is increasing rapidly. The BJP has ruined the good work done by the UPA," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.
"The prime minister, who talked of big things before coming to power, is enjoying power and Kashmiri Pandits continue to be refugees in their own country," he said.
Earlier in the day, the Congress demanded that the Modi government release a white paper on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits during its eight-year rule and apologise for their targeted killings.
The BJP hit back saying PM Modi corrected the "blunders" of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru related to Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India by nullifying Article 370 and in turn demanded an apology from the Congress.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).