On expected lines, Kashmiri separatists have rejected the three interlocutors’ report submitted to home minister P. Chidambaram by them on Wednesday, a year after the Centre appointed the 3-member group to draw a roadmap to peace as the situation in the Valley had turned grim following street protests and the killing of more than 100 youths.
“From day one we have been saying that it is nothing but wastage of time. After learning about the contours of the report, our stance has been vindicated only,” said chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. The report, he added, was “lifeless and directionless”.
Almost all other major separatist groups and their leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Yasin Malik and Syed Shabir Ahmed Shah, too have voiced similar views on the interlocutors’ report. Though the government has not made the report public as yet, it is said to have advocated “meaningful autonomy” and speedy development of Jammu and Kashmir and while stressing the respect of human rights rejected the “azadi” option on the premise that freedom is not the voice of all segments of the society. It is mainly where the separatists feel outraged about. While their anger is understood, it is mainstream Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s rejection of the report that has come as a bolt from the blue for many including some of them who empathise with it for varied reasons.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said it seems whole exercise has been wasted. “Recommendations like devolution of powers to panchyats is nothing special. Reportedly there is neither internal dimension nor external dimension in the report,” she said. She was of the view that the recommendations made by the Prime Minister’s Working Groups a few years ago were better than what is reported to be there in the interlocutors’ report.