New Delhi, Mar 23: New Delhi-appointed interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, Radha Kumar, Wednesday ruled out mention of autonomy in their report about the possible political contours to Kashmir resolution.
In an exclusive interview for Greater Kashmir with Spiegel Correspondent, Padma Rao Sundarji, Kumar said the interlocutors do not seek to recommend a solution but seek voices from Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh on what a lasting solution could be.
“Being one of the interlocutors, I cannot comment on the contents of any of our reports, least so on our latest one on possible political contours, which we have yet to submit even to the Government of India. But I must stress that the report on political contours is intended to stimulate a discussion, not to make recommendations, unlike our previous reports which recommended slew of CBMs and improvements on the ground. We do not seek to recommend a solution; we seek voices from Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh on what a lasting solution could be,” she said in response to a question on media reports suggesting that they (Interlocutors) had recommended autonomy as a final solution to Kashmir.
“Our mandate was to hold sustained political dialogue with all sections of public and political opinion in J&K.  Please see it in that context – of furthering the dialogue process.  We were totally taken aback by these rumours. But what was more surprising was that not a single legislator from J&K Assembly called us to ask whether we had indeed, said what we are supposed to have. In this context I am grateful to MLA Nizamuddin Bhat for suggesting the house wait till our report is in the public domain before jumping to conclusions.”
After six months of interlocution, Radha said the pace of reforms on ground was too slow.
“First, a grievance. The pace of reform is really too slow. Arrests continue to cause us grave concern. The judicial process is unable to handle some of the issues regarding arrests, especially FIRs, which just hang over young boys’ heads, even though they are released. We do recognize that according to the police, not more than 200 are in detention. But the fact is that arrests and releases are always accompanied by FIRs which create problems for the boys to seek education, jobs and other opportunities. I deeply regret that is still happening,” she said.
On Amnesty International’s report on Public Safety Act, Radha said: “First of all, not all arrests are illegal, they must be examined case by case. Secondly, we had suggested amendments to the PSA a month before this report. I told a reporter that we had met the Amnesty team, I had read the report only rather quickly and discussed some elements with them without going into its details. We felt that some of the statistics in the report presented a misleading picture. Also, we were not convinced of the methodology used by the organization (Amnesty) to gather that data. We told them all that. But examining that report is not our job.”

Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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