PC: Avoid ‘ball-by-ball commentary’
Union home minister P. Chdiamabaram is not very pleased with the Kashmir interlocutors sharing details of their discussions with various individuals and groups in the state with the media.
Indicating that the three interolucutors would do well to exercise caution in this respect, the minister said: “The interlocutors should not give a ball-by-ball commentary about their dialogue.” After all, he said, “this is not a cricket match”. The home minister was responding to queries about one of the interlocutors, Mr Dileep Padgaonkar, saying in a television interview that a terrorist whom he had met had expressed interest in submitting a peace plan.
The home minister also felt that the media also “should not ask about details”. But he went on to say that the interlocutors had, to some extent, changed the level of discourse in the state. “I sincerely hope that people in the state give peace a chance and give the dialogue a chance,” he said.
Referring to the controversy raging between India and the United States over the latter not fully sharing information on Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorist David Coleman Headley, the home minister tried to play down the matter, saying it had been “blown out of proportion”. The US, he said, had “shared intelligence with India before and after 26/11, though Headley’s name was not mentioned.” US ambassador to India Timothy J. Roemer, who met Mr Chidambaram during the day, said President Barack Obama was “looking forward” to meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
The home minister, who met reporters while presenting the home ministry’s report for October, said Washington had promised a “full review” of all US information on Headley, and after that it would tell India “what they knew about David Headley, when they knew about that and made the connection with 26/11”. On the question of Headley’s possible extradition to India and if the matter would figure in the talks during the Obama visit, Mr Chidambaram said: “Extradition is an option, and we will continue to pursue that option”.
He felt intelligence-sharing between India and the US was “extremely good”, and said the US had shared Headley’s name with India sometime in October 2009. The minister said the two governments were working on an understanding with reference to a counter-terrorism initiative.
On the BJP’s criticism of the Kashmir interlocutors, Mr Chidambaram said if that party wanted the dialogue process to succeed, it “should show restraint and not make baseless allegations”. He added that the BJP should give the dialogue process a chance. While peace was returning to the Valley, it “is too early to say that everything is normal there”, he said, though there was “a sense of expectation” after the all-party parliamentary delegation’s recent visit to the state.
The home minister, who visited Leh, Kargil, Baramulla and Srinagar over the weekend, inspected the flood-affected areas of Leh and Kargil and said progress was being made in rehabilitating the victims.
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