The Central government’s special representative for Kashmir, Dineshwar Sharma, on Monday reached Srinagar for a five-day visit to the State.
Mr. 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, officials said.
The first to meet Mr. Sharma was a 10-member delegation of the Gujjar Bakkarwal community. In Srinagar, he is expected to meet various political leaders, student groups and youth.
“I do not have a magic wand but my efforts have to be judged with sincerity and not through the prism of the past,” Mr. Sharma told PTI from Delhi. “I would like to be judged by my actions,” he said.
Won’t take part in talks: Hurriyat
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 Mr. Sharma and dubbed his appointment a “time-buying tactic” of the Centre.
Hardline Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Monday claimed that an official of the State government approached them for facilitating a meeting of the separatist leader with the Centre’s special representative.
“A state representative, on the intervening night of November 4 and 5, expressed a desire to meet the Hurriyat chairman to facilitate his meeting with the designate interlocutor,” a Hurriyat spokesman said here.
He said that according to the Hurriyat, “forced negotiations” have no political or moral justifications.
“We reject the dialogue offer...It is mere rhetoric and wastage of time and no section of Hurriyat or group will meet designate interlocutor or participate in this futile exercise,” the spokesman said.
Centre should make road map for dialogue in J&K public: Congress
The State unit of the Congress asked the Central government to make its road map for talks with various stakeholders public. It alleged that the Centre had made a U-turn on its Kashmir policy by appointing a special representative.
“For the last three years, they have been saying that there will be no talks with those who do not want to talk under the ambit of the Constitution. Today, the BJP is saying we are open to dialogue with everyone in the State. This is the U-turn on its Kashmir policy,” Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee president G.A. Mir told reporters in Jammu.
“The Congress is demanding the list of stakeholders for the last 15 days but they are keeping it behind the veil... They are doing everything behind the curtains and are ashamed of taking a stand and making it public because they are afraid of getting caught by the people whom they have betrayed,” he said.
Nothing to expect from talks, says National Conference
National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said the party had “little” expectations from Mr. Sharma.
“I have very little expectations from this new interlocutor. Like it has been done before, he will come and meet people. In 2010, the then UPA government appointed a group of interlocutors who visited the State and had detailed discussions with every section here. The process took more than two months and after they were done with meeting people, a report was compiled. What happened to that report? Did the government discuss that report in any forum, including Parliament? No. Instead it has been thrown into a dust-bin somewhere in the North Block,” he said.
Mr. Abdullah was addressing a gathering in the Tangdar area of north Kashmir’s Kupwara.
The appointment of a group of interlocutors in 2010 was followed by a delegation comprising parliamentarians, who visited Kashmir, but “nothing happened”, he claimed.
“So, I expect nothing to happen now as well,” Mr. Abdullah said and rued the BJP-led Central government’s Kashmir-centric policy.