New Delhi, Dec 9: Interlocutors on Kashmir, who have submitted their report to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday expressed the hope about a “positive outcome” for review of the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) from areas where there was no presence of the Army.
“We have given a set of recommendations in our interim report and review of the DAA was one among it. The issue is being debated in public and meetings are being held.
We are hopeful of a positive outcome but would expect a certain amount of discretion by officials in dealing with such an important issue as portraying it in the media only polarises opinion,” Dileep Padgaonkar, one of the three interlocutors, told PTI after a meeting with Chidambaram today.
He said the review of DAA would be done soon after striking a balance between security considerations and demand of the people of the state.
“We had met a cross section of people in certain areas where they had demanded revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the records also showed that there was no presence of the Army for many years,” he said.
Padgaonkar, along with academician Radha Kumar and MM Ansari, met the Home Minister to discuss the outcome of the report that they had submitted on October 12.
The Minister told “us that he would put the report in public domain after the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was again briefed on the entire report”.
“Once the report is in public domain, the Minister told us he would require us as resource persons for generating a debate,” he said.
The Home Minister also told the interlocutors that the work on their interim recommendations had been initiated by the state government and some of them had even been implemented. "Like removal of bunkers from public areas, use of non-lethal methods for quelling public demonstrations and end to frequent and abrupt checking by security forces," Padgaonkar said.
The noted journalist also said they had requested for immediate filling of vacancies of Information Commissioners and Accountability Commissions, which too had been accepted by the Jammu and Kashmir government.
Among other interim recommendations made by the interlocutors were implementation of the findings of two working groups led by two Planning Commission members for Jammu and Ladakh. The two working groups were constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to work out a scheme for equal growth of Jammu and Ladakh regions along with Kashmir.
Pertinently, Padgaonkar had last month expressed dismay over the absence of follow-up on their report. He had said that the report submitted by him and his two colleagues on Kashmir should be made public without any delay to put an end to speculations.
“When we submitted the report 2-months ago to the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram we were assured that contents of reports will be made public without any delay,” he had told Greater Kashmir recently.
“We were given to understand that report will be shared with the All Party Delegation and it will be made public after that so that people of JK and entire country can hold a debate over it in a democratic way,” he added. WITH INPUTS FROM GKNN

Lastupdate on : Fri, 9 Dec 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
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