Srinagar, Sept 23: The All Party Parliamentary group which was on a 2-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on September 21/22 met Home Minister P Chidambaram in Delhi today, ahead of submitting its report to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh later this week, sources told Greater Kashmir.
The delegation members met Home Minister, who was leading the All Party Delegation, to the state at his North Block office this afternoon and had a detailed discussion on Kashmir for at least 2 hours, sources said, adding among others General Secretary, CPI-M Sitaram Yechuri attended the meeting.
The discussion revolved around the assessment of the delegation members about the situation in Kashmir, sources said.
The delegation, sources said, was hopeful that government of India would continue the process it has started to address the “short and long term” issues in Kashmir.
National Conference President, Dr Farooq Abdullah, who was part of the visiting All Party Delegation, told Greater Kashmir the members would meet in coming few days to finalize the inputs about their assessment of the situation ahead of compiling the report.
“Once the report is compiled it will be directly submitted to the Prime Minister’s office. We will push for tabling the report in both the houses of the parliament,” said Abdullah who is also the Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Resources.
Though the former chief minister of JK refused to divulge on the individual assessment of various members of the situation, he asserted that the visit was a “success” as the lawmakers met every important person in the Valley.
“The process cleared the doubts that government was not trying to reach out to different shades of opinion in Kashmir,” said Abdullah referring to meeting of some delegation members with the separatists.
“However this is not the end of the process. More steps will have to be taken to address the problem,” he said.
Another member of the delegation who has openly spoken about the failure of the state government in handling the present crisis, which has resulted into killing of more than 100 Kashmiris, said, the members were not told yet how the assessment report would be prepared and submitted.
“But one thing is clear that we will be putting forth our view point about everything that we have seen and heard in the Valley. It was not clear what modalities will be followed to submit the report,” the member, wishing not to be named, said.
Asked about his evaluation of the situation in Kashmir, he said the clamping down of curfew and strict restrictions put in place on the movement of people and the killings speaks for itself that situation was “worrisome.”
“It has been unfortunate that from the very beginning the state and central government were in a denial mood about the deteriorating atmosphere the Valley. However better late than never, we hope that our visit will not be the end of the process initiated by the New Delhi and government of India is more serious this time about Kashmir,” the member said.
Another senior member of the team who was part of a delegation that had met one of the separatist leaders said since the Home Minister P Chidambaram was leading the delegation the home ministry might provide inputs separately to the government on the follow up action required on Kashmir.
“If possible the delegation members will push for a meeting with the Prime Minister to brief him personally about their assessment. But I am not sure about the procedure that will be adopted to submit the report,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST