Directions (Q.1-10): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.
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The debate over the moves by the Central and the Jammu and Kashmir governments to resettle Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir is one that will only bring pain to any well-wisher of the State. To understand this, one has to go back in time, when the second half of the 1980s saw Kashmir spiral out of control, gripped by violence, suspicion and dread. What had begun as an ethnic conflict was soon imparted a religious colour by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The Pandits, a Hindu minority in the Kashmir Valley, were targeted by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), even though the organisation had sought to build on the original secular foundations of the National Conference, and by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a secessionist outfit, which sparked theirexodus. By 2008, their population, as assessed by the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), was reduced to 651 families from 75,343 families on January 1, 1990. Nearly 70,000 families fled in the turmoil of 1990-92, and even though the violence was brought under control, most of the remaining families left thereafter.
By 1990 — I was Special Commissioner, Anantnag, in South Kashmir then — the public had ceased to visit government offices. But in early March, several hundred people from the Nai Basti neighbourhood went to the Special Commissioner’s office in Khannabal demanding to see me. Because of the disturbed circumstances, I had set up office and residence in the rest house in the district headquarters. Mohammad Syed Shah, generally known as Syed Shah, the brother of the separatist leader, Shabbir Shah, and Muslim United Front (MUF) member of the dissolved State Assembly, demanded to know why Pandits were leaving en masse and in turn why the administration was doing nothing about it. Mr. Shah accused the administration of encouraging the migration so that the Army would be left free to unleash its heavy artillery on all habitations. When I asked the delegation if it believed that I would be party to such a plan, this was their response: ‘I had been kept in the dark, while they were privy to “secret” information’. That the Pandits were apprehensive was hardly surprising, I said. Places of worship, like the one in Anantnag, where the majority went, were being used to issue threats to them over loudspeakers. I learnt later that these inflammatory sermons, and their reverberating public applause, were audio recordings circulated to mosques to be played over loudspeakers at prayer time. Local Muslims needed to reassure the Pandits of their safety, I said. The administration would provide security whenever a threat to the Pandits was anticipated, but how effective it would all be would depend onunstinted public support, given that the residences of the Pandits were scattered. The gathering concurred and dispersed. I requested State Governor Jagmohan that he appeal to the Pandits, in a telecast, that they stay on in Kashmir, and assure them of their safety on the basis of the assurances of the Anantnag residents. Unfortunately, the only announcement to this effect was that “refugee” camps were being set up in every district, and Pandits who felt threatened could move to them rather than leave the Valley. Pandits in service who felt threatened were free to leave their stations; they would continue to be paid their salaries. I relate this story because the present flurry of allegations brings a sense of de-ja-vu. The Pandits — more than 1,20,000 in the early 1980s — numbered about 7,000 in the Kashmir Valley, in 2005.
Source- The Hindu
Q.1. Which of the following is the meaning of the word “Exodus”?
1) Creating riot
2) Extinction
3) Mass departure
4) Fear
5) None of these
Q.2. Which of the following is the synonym of the word “Dread”?
1) Apprehension
2) Fusillade
3) Lachrymose
4) Confidence
5) Stagnation
Q.3. Choose an appropriate Title for the above passage :
1) Return to a lost paradise.
2) Furious Kashmir
3) The Birth of a riot
4) Deadly Co-existence in Kashmir
5) Born to die
Q.4. Which of the following options best describes the meaning of the phrase “privy to secret information”.
1) wrong information but seems to be secret
2) All rubbish
3) Forwarding wrong but secret information
4) Well acquainted with
5) None of the above
Q.5. Which of the following is not true according to the passage?
1) Kashmiri pandits moved to refugee camps even after the assurance from the state governor.
2) Author set up an office and resident in the affected district headquarter.
3) Mosques were to console the affected pundits and to assure them safety on loudspeakers.
4) Some people blamed the author for promoting the migration.
5) None of the above.
Q.6. Which of the following is not the synonym of the word “turmoil”?
1) chaos
2) pandemonium
3) mayhem
4) bedlam
5) None of these
Q.7. What is the synonym of the word “apprehensive”?
1) fidgety, ,
2) strained
3) tense
4) All of the above
5) None of the above
Q.8. In the passage, Mr Shah accused the administration for………….. .
1) having pandits killed in the district.
2) migration of the pandits
3) distracting the inquiry
4) not maintaining peace in the valley
5) none of the above
Q.9. What is not the synonym of word “unstinted”?
1) lavish
2) magnanimous
3) generous
4) All of the above
5) None of the above
Q.10. Which of the following organizations is not mentioned in the passage?
1) MUF
2) KPSS
3) ISI
4) JKLF
5) None of the above
Answers :
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