Kashmir interlocutors submit report to Chidambaram

New Delhi: The three interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir — Dilip Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M M Ansari — today submitted a report to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, in which they have outlined a roadmap to resolve the Kashmir issue.
The team of three interlocutors, which visited various parts of the valley and interacted with a cross section of people to have an understanding of their viewpoints, completed its report within the timeframe of one year given by the government.
The report is reportedly silent on the issues of Azadi and autonomy for the state.
It is learnt to have suggested a review of Armed Forces Act and gradual withdrawal of armed forces from disturbed areas.
The three had met around 700 delegations during the past one year apart from holding three roundtable conferences and attending three gatherings.
”We have suggested a roadmap at the end of the report and it was up to the government to carry forward the recommendations. The report represents almost all voices of the state,” Mr Padgaonkar had told reporters.
He added:”we have endeavoured to address all aspects on Kashmir — political, economic, social and cultural.” The noted journalist had said the mandate was that the group would hold the widest possible consultations with all sections of opinion in the state and the focus of the dialogue was to seek as large area of agreement as it could get to arrive at a comprehensive, political settlement of the Kashmir problem.
Noted academician Radha Kumar had earlier been engaged in back-channel discussions with moderate Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani but after her appointment as the Centre’s interlocutor, the separatist leaders stayed away from her.