Srinagar, March 1 :     In a radical volte face, the Jammu and Kashmir government has said that it will not force Kashmiri Pandits to return to the state. Even last year, chief minister Farooq Abdullah had threatened to stop the salaries of all absent Kashmiri Pandit employees and the cash relief they are paid by the state government if they did not return home. ?The migrants will not be forced to return to their homes and hearths unless they are confident about the security scenario in the Valley,? Abdullah announced in the Assembly today. He said the Centre had agreed to provide funds for the rehabilitation of Pandits in the Kashmir Valley. He added: ?Those Pandits who return will continue to get cash assistance and other facilities for the time being.? The chief minister said the migrants ?will be at liberty to reconstruct their houses themselves, for which assistance will be provided by the government?. Abdullah announced that the monthly cash relief for migrant Pandits has been hiked to Rs 2,500. Earlier, the Pandits would get Rs 1,500 per family as relief in Jammu and other places where they are living in camps set up by the government after they migrated to the state in early 1990 when militancy erupted in Kashmir. The state government had formulated a plan for the return of the Pandits to the Valley. However, the plan was temporarily shelved following the killing of Pandits who preferred to stay back in the Valley along with their Muslim neighbours at Wandhama and Budgam. Pandits living in the Valley were then provided security by the administration. A special police force or SPO was formed last year to guard those Pandits who still are in Kashmir. However, sources said the latest massacre of Hindu villagers in Rajouri and Udhampur has forced the state administration not to force the ?unwilling Pandits? to return to the Valley. Various Pandit organisations have recently said they will return to Kashmir only when normality is restored. ?The killings in the Valley have increased manifold recently despite tall claims by the chief minister. He is trying to force us to return. But we will return only when the last gun is silenced. He is roaming around guarded by Black Cats and police commandos. Let him first move around in Srinagar without security?, said Ramesh Koul, a Central government employee living in a security zone here.