M A I N   N E W S

Panel on J&K autonomy soon

NEW DELHI, May 7 (PTI) — After months of stony silence, the Centre has announced it would set up a high-level committee of secretaries to examine the autonomy report submitted by the Jammu and Kashmir Government.

The Centre’s action comes in the wake of intense pressure being exerted by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah for the speedy examination and subsequent action by the BJP-led government at the Centre on the report.

The autonomy report compiled by a high-level state committee of eminent academicians led by Dr Riyaz Punjabi, a visiting professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University recommends pre-1953 status for Kashmir, empowering districts and sub-regions and restoring the nomenclature of Prime Minister and Sadar-i-Riyasat in the state.

The committee’s report endorsed by the state government and submitted to the Centre in January this year, could not have come at a more uncomfortable time for the BJP-led government, as it is in the process of initiating a fresh dialogue in Jammu and Kashmir with the separatist All-Party Hurriyat Conference and other groups.

Highly placed sources in the Home Ministry said the proposed high-level committee may comprise the Cabinet Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Law Secretary who may involve experts on Kashmir and legal luminaries to comprehensively examine the report.

Getting the report examined comprehensively by a committee of secretaries appears to be an apparent bid by the Centre to gain time and space to carry out a dialogue with other groups in Kashmir, in which autonomy is likely to figure prominently.

Though Hurriyat and other separatist groups have so far publicly spurned any move for dialogue with the Centre within the Indian Constitution, according to sources close to these groups a number of meetings have taken place through intermediaries.

A key point in any fresh dialogue in Kashmir where Assembly elections are due in 2003 would be the quantum of autonomy.

The Centre is likely to ascertain the views of other major political parties in Jammu and Kashmir as well as other groups on the autonomy issue before taking concrete steps on the report submitted by the state government.

Interestingly, a number of Kashmir groups based in USA and UK have recently reflected on the autonomy package. These groups like the Hurriyat Conference earlier had outrightly rejected any dialogue with India on the Kashmir issue.

But recently in the run up to President Bill Clinton’s historic visit to India, some of these groups like the London-based Kashmir Watch led by Dr Siraj Shah had called for putting a 15-year freeze on the Kashmir issue and demanded restoration of pre-1953 status for Kashmir.