Singh said discussions with delegations overall have been positive.
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“There are no two opinions that Jammu and Kashmir was, is and will remain an integral part of India”.
He said that the delegation’s talks with the various sections in J&K have been fruitful. “I want to clarify that some members of the delegation had gone to meet Hurriyat leaders yesterday”. But you know what happened there.
Commenting on the Home Minister’s reference to the oft repeated “rhetoric” of “Jamhooriyat, Insaaniyat and Kashmiriyat” in his press conference in Srinagar, the APHC-m asked Singh “if it was Insaaniyat (Humanity) under which GoI has martyred 74 civilians, most of whom are children and teenagers, blinded more than 200 and injured more than 10000, civilians many among whom have been handicapped and maimed”.
While other separatist leaders did meet them briefly but refused to hold talks, hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani shut his door on the MPs even as they kept waiting outside his upscale Hyderpora residence for about 10 minutes.
Singh said the delegation would like to visit Ladakh also in the near future as the region too is a part of Jammu and Kashmir state and it is important to listen to the voice of the people there.
When asked about whether the home minister would speak to Pakistan about the issue, Singh said, “Let’s first speak to those in the country”.
When asked whether the Centre is willing to go the extra mile on the demands of autonomy raised by PDP and National Conference from time to time, he said, “We are not concerned with whatever one had said in the past”. Because of the seriousness of the situation, he said, the 26-member Parliamentary delegation had arrived in Kashmir.
To a query about possibility of “Track-2” talks on Kashmir, Singh said he did not wish to enter into a debate about “track-one, track-two or track-three”. I had then said that I was instituting a committee to decide on an alternative in two months. “The shells will not take lives. Besides, there are also inputs from personal visits of some members to different places”, another delegation member said. “Everyone wants that the situation must improve”. I don’t want to get into details. “The central government is cooperating with the state government and the Mehbooba Mufti-led government is trying to improve the situation”, Singh said.
Singh, at a brief press conference, said the Kashmir visit could not be described as a failure. He disagreed, saying it can not be described as a failure.
The delegation was on a two-day visit of the state to deliberate over the prevailing restive situation in the Kashmir Valley and ways to bring normalcy there. The delegation would meet in Delhi and discuss the future action plan, he added. “Besides, they also merited the attention of the all-party delegation towards the problems of the Jammu region”.
The Home Minister also informed the gathering that Sanjay Roy from Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been nominated as the Nodal Officer to address the grievances of people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The delegation comprised 26 MPs from 20 parties.
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Meanwhile, moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq rejected the Home Minister’s assertion that Kashmir is an integral part of India, contending that it is an “internationally-accepted dispute since 1947”.
