“Referring to Hurriyat Conference (HC) leaders” yesterday’s refusal to meet the All-Party-Delegation (APD), which is on a two-day visit to ease the volatile situation in Kashmir, Mr Singh said this was neither “Kashmriyat” nor “Insaniyat”(Humanity).
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He said that the doors are always open for those keen on holding a dialogue to restore normalcy in the region. “But yes, we have received many a suggestions in the last 24 hours as we met 30 delegations and some 300 people, including civil society members and intellectuals”. Neither had we said “yes” nor “no” (to their meetings).
Further, Rajnath said that if you do not want to talk is a different thing, but they proved that they have no faith in democracy. Akhtar refused to reply to a question whether there were any back channel talks with Hurriyat Conference.
“Everybody in Kashmir wants peace and normalcy to return”.
“There are no two ways about the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India, was a part of India and will be a part of India”, Singh said while addressing media in Srinagar.
Hitting out at the Hurriyat, Rajnath said the amalgam of separatist groups doesn’t believe in the institution of dialogue.
To a query about possibility of “Track-2” talks on Kashmir, Mr. Singh said he did not wish to enter into a debate about “track-one, track-two or track-three”.
The Congress on Monday voiced its support for Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti even as the separatists refused to hold talks with the all-party delegation and emphasized that only dialogue is the solution to end the prevailing unrest in the valley.
“My advice to all those who are continuing violence is that talks are the only way to address all issues”.
On 3 September, a day before the all-party delegation’s visit began, Singh cleared the use of chilli-filled grenades-Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA), also called Nonivamide-as an alternative to pellet guns with instructions to security forces to use them only in the rarest of rare cases.
Singh said the situation in Jammu and Kashmir will improve and everyone who met the delegation had expressed this wish.
“This panchayat made a decision to send a delegation to Kashmir to interact with the people”, he said.
Hundreds of Kashmiri refugees staged a rally in Muzaffarabad on Sunday to protest against the visit of an Indian parliamentary delegation to Srinagar.
The CPI-M leader, who was one of the MPs to try to meet Hurriyat leaders, said it was not a snub.
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TRS’ Jitendra Reddy, N.K. Premchandran (RSP), P Venugopal (AIADMK), Tiruchi Siva (DMK), Y B Subba (YSR-Cong), Jaiprakash Yadav (RJD), Dharamveer Gandhi (AAP) and Dushyant Chautala (RLD) are also in the team.
