J&K panel suggestions with Omar

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi : The Centre has sent some of the first recommendations made by the three-member team of interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir to the Omar Abdullah government for “necessary action”. “Some recommendations have been sent to the state government for necessary action. Some are under implementation,” a home ministry statement said today. The interlocutors — journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, Professor Radha Kumar and former central information commissioner M.M. Ansari — submitted their first set of recommendations after visiting the state between October 23 and 28.

They have suggested “expediting cases of undertrials, permitting peaceful protests, releasing militants/protesters against whom there are no serious charges, training security forces, identifying jobs for young men and women in central/state government offices, announcing scholarships for Kashmiri students, enhancing monetary assistance to widows and orphans, enhancing efforts to trace missing persons, promoting investments in Kashmir, according special status to Paharis and representation to Gujjars and Bakerwals in political institutions and bureaucracy, and increasing monthly allowances to Kashmiri Pandits”.

The interlocutors visited the state again from November 9 to 14, travelling to Baramullah, Uri, Anantnag, Ganderbal, Bandipora, Leh and Kargil districts. They met political and community leaders and minority representatives, including Kashmiri Pandit groups as well as refugees from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. They also visited detainees in Srinagar’s Central Jail and met leaders of student protests.

“The recommendations made in the report of their second visit are under active consideration of the government,” the ministry statement said. The third set of recommendations, likely to include the “broad contours” of a possible political solution of the Kashmir problem, will be made after the team visits the state again from December 17 to 23. They are expected to visit several district headquarters, including Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch, Doda and Srinagar.

The Cabinet Committee on Security will deliberate upon these final and crucial recommendations. Already, action on some of the first recommendations has taken place, government sources here said. These include release of 66 youths and withdrawal of 22 cases under the Public Safety Act. The Centre had announced the appointment of the interlocutors on October 13 “to hold sustained dialogue with a wide range of important representatives of political and public opinion to draw up a road map for a permanent settlement of the political problem in the state of Jammu and Kashmir”.

(Courtesy : www.telegraphindia.com, 8 Dec. 2010)