The Centre is likely to bring the Kashmiri agitationists to the negotiating table and seek their endorsement of any agreement for the transfer of land for Amarnath pilgrimage before concluding the ongoing talks with the Jammu-based Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS).
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has reportedly assured People’s Democratic Party (PDP) MP Mehbooba Mufti and Union Water Resources Minister Saifudin Soz that the ongoing talks between a committee appointed by Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra and SAYSS to resolve the agitation in Jammu would not be concluded without consulting the Kashmiris.
After meeting Patil on Saturday evening, the two leaders said Kashmir was agog with rumours that the government had agreed to re-allot the land, the bone of contention between the Kashmir and Jammu regions, to the Amarnath Shrine Board during the talks with the SASS.
A four-member committee headed by a former bureaucrat S S Billowria started talks with the SAYSS on Saturday. While both sides were pleased with the inconclusive talks, the final deal is yet to be clinched.
Sources said the Centre had decided to move cautiously on resolution of the conflict. The agreement, which is being worked out with the agitationists in Jammu, where a bandh continued for the 56th day today, would be signed only after the agitationists from Kashmir agree to it.
Sources said the government was likely to invite the Jammu and Kashmir Coordination Committee (JKCC), a Kashmir-based amalgam comprising separatist groups, bar council and several social and business organisations for talks as soon as the pro-Pakistan protests ebbed in the Valley.
Political leaders from Kashmir have asked the Centre to make the JKCC and SAYSS leaders sit face to face and come to terms on the resolution of the land dispute about allotment of land for Amarnath pilgrimage.
Mehbooba Mufti, however, said today her party would stand up against the repressive measures being used by the government in Kashmir. “The TV channels have been banned, curfew is being imposed without any reason although people have been protesting peacefully all these days,” she said.
