Interlocutors’ wrap-up Kashmir visit

Srinagar: The interlocutors headed by senior journalist Dileep Padgoankar Wednesday wrapped up first visit to Kashmir.

The members concluded their visit to the Valley with an informal interaction with some journalists in here.

One of the journalists who attended the interaction told Press Bureau of India that the interlocutors while expressing their wish to visit Pakistan-Administered Kashmir said they would like to take all the stake-holders on board. “We would like to visit there to get their point of view on the Kashmir issue,” Padgoankar, according to the journalist, said.

When asked about the steps they were likely to recommend in order to improve the situation in Kashmir, Padgoankar said the panel will recommend amendments in the Public Safety Act, release of political prisoners, lifting of curfew and allowing peaceful protests in the Valley while Radha Kumar hinted at recommendations for amending the Indian constitution in order to find a solution to the issue according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

Meanwhile, the panel, two of the three interlocutors appointed for Kashmir by New Delhi, met detainees at the Kot Balwal Jail in Jammu after they arrived in the winter capital on Wednesday even as the third interlocutor, former bureaucrat M.M. Ansari flew back to New Delhi.

Sources told KMW that Padgoankar and Kumar were received by officials including Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Dr. Pawan Kotwal, Inspector General Police, Jammu Zone, Ashok Gupta and Deputy Inspector General, Jammu-Kuthua range, Farooq Khan at Jammu Airport this afternoon.

“After having lunch at the state guest house, the duo left for the Kot-Balwal jail to meet detainees,” they added.

However, it couldn’t be ascertained whether the interlocutors were able to meet  detained separatist leaders Shabbir Shah, Asiya Andrabi and president of Kashmir High Court Bar Association Mian Abdul Qayoom in the jail.

Meanwhile, sources said, that Padgoankar and Kumar may  visit a Kashmiri Pandits migrant camp at Muthi tomorrow. ” Besides they will meet  industry representatives, university teachers and the leaders of various political groups during their stay in Jammu,” they said.

Pertinently, the BJP state unit today said that it would boycott the interlocutors “One wonders whether they are representing India or Pakistan,” the BJP State President Shamsher Singh Manhas tld reporters in Jammu.