Alwaght- The Indian government has announced it will start talks in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir with all parties, including separatists who are calling for independence or a merger with Pakistan.
A former head of the country’s domestic spy agency will lead talks to end the nearly three-decade-long, bloody insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir, the government announced on Monday.
Home minister Rajnath Singh said Dineshwar Sharma, 63, who retired as the Intelligence Bureau director in December, will speak to “all stakeholders”, as well as decide on whether to talk to the leading separatist group, the Hurriyat Conference.
“For a substantive dialogue, I will need to talk to everybody,’’ Sharma told Hindustan Times. “Peace must be restored in Kashmir and for that I will talk to all people in an effort to bring about a solution.”
The talks offer stems from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last Independence Day outreach to the restive Kashmir. Modi had said the region’s problems could be solved by embracing its people rather than resorting to abuse or bullets.
Modi’s comments were seen as a possible shift in his policy towards Kashmir, where the government has been pursuing a tough line against pro-independent groups with security forces killing about 100 people over the past year.
In 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh renewed those efforts, setting set up a panel of interlocutors to speak to various stakeholders, including the Hurriyat leaders. The panel, however, did not meet the separatist leader and its report was never made public.
The Hurriyat (Freedom) is an umbrella group of political and religious groups fighting mostly for Kashmir’s independence from India.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided since the partition of British colonial India into the dominion states of India and Pakistan in 1947. China also holds a small parcel of land.
The conflict in Indian-controlled Kashmir is basically a struggle for self-determination with residents of the region demanding a plebiscite while India rejects the call.
