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Kashmiri Separatists Refuse to Meet Indian Delegation
SRINAGAR: An all-party group of Indian lawmakers visited violence-wracked Kashmir on Monday but key local leaders refused to meet them and said New Delhi had no answers to the region's crisis.
More than 100 civilians have been killed in three months of clashes that have pitched stone-throwing protesters against the security forces, who have frequently opened fire with live ammunition.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held an emergency all-party meeting last week, which decided to send the 37-member delegation to Kashmir to talk to local politicians and business groups in an effort to ease tensions.
It is the first time that ministers or mainstream political leaders have visited the region since the demonstrations began in June.
But hopes that the visit could break the cycle of violence were undermined by the decision of Kashmiri separatist leaders to reject the offer of face-to-face talks.
Syed Ali Geelani, the veteran separatist who has organised the almost daily demonstrations throughout the summer, rejected any meeting, saying nothing positive could emerge from it.
Other separatists Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik also declined to meet with the all-party delegation, their supporters told reporters on Monday morning.
“It is a farce that they come here, saying they are assessing the situation, when everyone knows that innocents are being killed and the curfews have turned much of Kashmir into a jail,” Farooq told AFP.
“We can not support these half-hearted gestures that are just to make the government look as if they are serious.”
Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the state government opposition, said she would send party members to the talks at a conference centre in Srinagar, but would not attend herself.
“They know my views, and we have not changed any policy,” she said, adding that a strict curfew across Kashmir should be lifted immediately.
The delegation from New Delhi, led by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, also planned to meet representatives of the struggling tourism industry and other businesses, according to officials.
“We have to talk to each other. And those who have grievances against the government have to talk to the administration,” Prime Minister Singh said last week.
But solutions to the unrest in Kashmir, home to a 20-year insurgency against Indian rule, appear as distant as ever, with public resentment hardening with each civilian death.
Delegates did not speak to the media early Monday, but Pawan Kumar Bansal of the ruling Congress party said Sunday that they would be getting “direct feedback from the ground”.
“I will not raise the expectations. It is part of a long-drawn process which we have to carry out,” he said.
Among the delegates was Arun Jaitley, a senior figure in the main Hindu nationalist BJP opposition, which opposes making any security or political concessions to separatists.
In the wave of rallies that began on June 11, paramilitary troops have regularly opened fire after coming under attack from anti-India protesters throwing rocks and stones.
Many of those killed have been young men or teenagers, and news of each death has brought more people on to the streets and led to further deadly clashes with the security forces.
Police said a 22-year-old woman bystander was killed during protests on Sunday evening in the northern town of Sopore, bringing the number of civilians to have died to 106.
Curfews and strikes have shut down Srinagar and many other towns for weeks at a time, with residents complaining of shortages of food and essential medicine.
Kashmir, a beautiful mountainous region in the Himalayan foothills, has been a regular flashpoint between India and Pakistan since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
The two rival nations fought wars over Kashmir in 1947-8, leaving it divided between Indian and Pakistani sectors, and again in 1965.
DAWN.COM | World | Kashmiri separatists refuse to meet Indian delegation