Mehbooba Mufti hails Centre dialogue plan

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has welcomed the Centre’s decision to start a sustained dialogue in the State and its appointing former Intelligence Bureau (IB) director Dineshwar Sharma as an interlocutor.

“Welcome the initiative of Union Government, appointing an interlocutor for leading a sustained dialogue with stakeholders in Jammu & Kashmir,” she wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter soon after home minister Rajnath Singh at a press conference in New Delhi said that the government has decided to start a sustained dialogue in Jammu and Kashmir and that Mr Sharma would be government of India’s representative holding a rank equivalent to that of a Cabinet Secretary.

In another tweet, she said, “Dialogue is a necessity of the hour and the only way to go forward.” She also tweeted, “This dialogue initiative is in line with P.M @narendramodi’s  15th August speech ‘na goli se, na gaali se, Kashmir ki samasya suljhegi gale lagaane se’”.

Her predecessor and opposition National Conferebce (NC) working president Omar Abdullah reacted in a guarded manner to the Centre’s move and said, “Centre announces an interlocutor to engage with stakeholders in J&K. Will keep an open mind & wait to see results of the dialogue process.”

The home minister had at his press conference also said that Mr Sharma would initiate the sustained interaction and dialogue to understand legitimate aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Responding to it, Mr Abdullah tweeted, “The ‘legitimate aspirations’ of people of J&K is an interesting formulation. Who gets to decide what is legitimate?” He also said, “One can’t get everything so for now we’ll take what we can get. More important than the person is the mandate & absence of pre-conditions”.

In yet another tweet, he asked, “What does this mean for the NIA investigation in J&K? Will investigation be suspended to facilitate dialogue with detained Hurriyat leaders?” The National Investigating Agency (NIA) which is probing alleged terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir recently conducted a series of raids across the state and arrested about a dozen people including separatist leaders and activists, a businessman, a lawyer and a photojournalist.

The NC leader, however, saw in the Centre’s move a “resounding defeat” to the hardliners who have been pleading for stringent measures to contain the separatists’ activities. He tweeted, “The acceptance of the political nature of the #Kashmir issue is a resounding defeat of those who could only see use of force as a solution.”

Former Union home minister P. Chidambaram expressed a similar view. He said that by appointing an interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, the government has admitted that its “muscular approach” has failed in the state.

He tweeted, “From no-talks to talks-with-all-stakeholders is a major victory for those who had strongly argued for a political solution in Jammu and Kashmir”. In another tweet, he said, “With the appointment of an interlocutor, I hope the government has finally admitted muscular approach has failed.”

Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of separatist Hurriyat Conference alliance, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on being contacted by this newspaper said that the Home Minister’s statement was somewhat “vague” and, therefore, he won’t react to it as of now. “Let the details come, let it be known who they want to talk to and who they think are the stakeholders. Unless and until that is clear we don’t think we should say anything on it,” he said.

The home minister had said that Mr Sharma will initiate the dialogue with the elected representatives of Jammu and Kashmir, political parties, different organisations and public.

Mirwaiz is among the three key separatist leaders who under the banner of ‘Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL)’ are spearheading ‘aazadi’ campaign for the last couple of years. The sources said that the trio-the two others being Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Muhammad Yasin Malik — would like to discuss the issue among themselves first and only then react to the government’s announcement. The sources, however, also said that since the home minister did not mention the separatist leadership specifically, the JRL may only make a general statement, reiterating its known stand on the issue of holding dialogue with the Centre.