JOIN USTwo of the three former interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir on Monday met home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and briefed him about their year-long exercise of interaction with a cross section of people in the state.
Emerging after the hour-long meeting, Dileep Padgaonkar, who served as chairman of the group, said they informed the minister about their plans to conduct workshops being conducted in Srinagar and Jammu later this week.
First meeting
This was for the first time that the interlocutors met Shinde after he took over charges of the ministry earlier this month.
“We told him that we are going to conduct workshops in Srinagar and Jammu later this week to receive a structured feed back on the recommendations of the report,” Padgaonkar said, adding Shinde asked them to communicate their feedback at the earliest opportunity.
Padgaonkar, who was accompanied by Radha Kumar, were told by the minister that he would go into the details of the report once the current session of Parliament was over.
Shinde said he would meet the two and again discuss the structured feedback with them.
The report of the interlocutors, which was submitted last year on October 12 and made public on May 24, has recommended setting up of a constitutional committee to review all acts and articles of the constitution extended to Jammu and Kashmir and upholding of Article 370.
The 176-page report also calls for a review of all Central acts and all articles of the constitution of India extended to the state after the 1952 Delhi agreement which also gave special status to the state under Article 370.
Under the political component, the report deals with Centre-state relations and internal devolution of powers and suggests a road map listing confidence-building measures that includes review of Disturbed Areas Act and re-appraisal of application of controversial AFSPA.
The report was dismissed by many state and national political parties while separatist groups from the Valley had never joined the discussions with the interlocutors.