Visits Jagti township, interacts with Kashmiri Pandits

Government of India’s interlocutor for Kashmir dialogue Dineshwar Sharma on Friday ruled out releasing political prisoners as a confidence building measure.

“I don’t see anything like that happening,” Sharma told reporters when asked whether release of prisoners will be a follow-up measure to the amnesty the government announced for first-time stone throwers/protesters on Thursday.

Sharma arrived in Jammu on his second visit to the state and interacted with the media after holding meetings with Kashmiri Pandits at Jagti Township, Nagrota.

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) in Kashmir has been seeking intervention of the international community for release of political prisoners in the state and they are learnt to have set release of prisoners as one of the six conditions for participating in any dialogue.

Tens of hundreds of people were arrested, and majority of them released, since last year’s uprising triggered by the killing of Hizb commander Burhan Wani. Scores of them have been detained under the Public Safety Act.

Later, in a crackdown launched by the National Investigation Agency, many prominent separatist leaders have been detained, prominent among them being Altaf Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, Naeem Khan and Bitta Karate.

Women separatist leader and founder of Dukhtaran-e-Millat Asiya Andrabi and her aide, Fehmeeda Sofi were also lodged in jail besides Masrat Alam of Hurriyat Conference (G), who were released and rearrested by PDP-BJP government.

Earlier in the day, Sharma called on the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and discussed ways and means for reaching out to various stakeholders.

Later, he visited Jagti Township where he met several delegations of Kashmiri Pandit community. He had meet around 10 groups consisting of former legislators besides political, non-political and social groups of the community. Tomorrow he will visit Reasi to interact with Talwara migrants.

Sharma will also visit Kashmir Valley during the six-day tour to the state in an effort to pave the way for a sustained dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue. Sharma will remain in Jammu till Sunday after which he will leave for the Valley, officials said.