Centre’s special representative Dineshwar Sharma arrives in Kashmir for talks

Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre’s special representative for talks on Kashmir, calls on J&K Governor N N Vihra in New Delhi on Sunday. (Source:  PTI Photo)

Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre’s special representative for Kashmir, on Monday, reached Srinagar for a five-day visit to the state.  Sharma, a former chief of the Intelligence Bureau, will spend three days in the Kashmir Valley and two days in Jammu, where he will hold talks with Governor N N Vohra, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and various delegations, they said.

Sharma is expected to meet various political leaders, student groups and youths in Srinagar. He said he would ensure that youths and students become part of the peace process.

Speaking to PTI in Delhi, Sharma said: “I do not have a magic wand but my efforts have to be judged with sincerity and not through the prism of the past.”

Sharma, who is originally from Bihar and is a Kerala-cadre IPS officer of the 1979 batch, held the country’s top-most post for a police officer from 2014 to 2016. The Joint Resistance Forum, a conglomerate of three separatist organisations — the hardline and moderate factions of the Hurriyat Conference and the JKLF — announced earlier this week that they would not meet Sharma and dubbed his appointment a “time-buying tactic” of the Centre.

The National Conference, the state’s main opposition party, felt the exercise of meeting Sharma may not yield much result in view of statements by Central leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had flayed talk of Kashmir’s autonomy. The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly had passed a resolution in July 2000 for granting more autonomy to the state within the ambit of the constitution.

With PTI inputs