Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will get off on what could have been a crucial 2-day visit of restive Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. He had recently indicated that making an effort to rope in “those who are outside the political mainstream provided they shun violence” would be the prime rendezvous in his itinerary.
But the visit will actually work miracles is now improbable. Even chief minister Omar Abdullah has, though circuitously, admitted to the fact the Prime Minister visit has been somewhat overshadowed by the rage the shocking revelation that three local youth were slain in a staged gun fight after being lured to Line of Control by the promise of providing them jobs in the Army and later passed off as infiltrating terrorists has set off across Kashmir Valley.
The anger over the April 30 incident has been constantly vent on the streets by the residents and in the milieu of string of allegations of human rights violations even the moderate segment of the separatist leadership has distanced itself from what it had said earlier was possible provided the Centre took some confidence-building measures before seeking to resume the stalled dialogue process with it.
Apparently to bailout the Centre, Mr Abdullah said here earlier this week that the Prime Minister was not coming to hold direct talks with the moderate Hurriyat Conference leadership but at the same time asserted that his visit will help towards rejuvenating the internal dialogue process. When those who were supposed to give wings to this process choose to stay away who was then the Prime Minister referring to when he said that he would talk to “those who are outside the political mainstream” is the key question the chief minister has evaded to touch for his expediency or to be more precise salvage the Prime Minister’s image.
National Conference (NC), the senior partner of the Congress party in the ruling coalition, had earlier termed as “appropriate” Dr Singh’s offer of talks with separatists whereas main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had urged them to “seize the opportunity to put across their viewpoint in the solution of Kashmir issue.”
Home secretary G.K. Pillai had said that the Prime Minister’s visit “is continuation of the internal dialogue process on Kashmir and of prime importance.”