Srinagar, Nov 08 (KNS): Throwing the dialogue ball into Government of India’s court, senior opposition leaders Wednesday said that other than dialogue there is no option to resolve the Kashmir issue but the onus lies on New Delhi to make the process credible.
CPI (M) State Secretary MY Tarigami, PDF Chairman Hakeem Yasin and DNP president Ghulam Hassan Mir said that Government of India is not doing any favour to the people of the state but the whole country by announcing dialogue process.
The three leaders addressed a press conference after meeting the centre’s representative, Dineshwar Sharma, who called on them at the residence of Tarigami at Gupkar.
Sharma has been camping in Kashmir from November 6 to meet different delegations and mainstream political parties for the dialogue process. He will leave for Jammu tomorrow where he will meet different people for two days. Hurriyat leaders and major trade bodies stayed away from meeting him.
Tarigami said that they stressed on Sharma to continue the dialogue process to make it credible and sustainable.
“It is not a favour to the people of the Jammu and Kashmir, but a legitimate concern and duty of the Government of India to continue the dialogue process,” Tarigami told reporters.
He said that more the dialogue process is delayed, more problems it will create for the people and compound them.
“Dialogue is the only option but needs to be sustainable and institutionalised. We stressed that the statements from the BJP functionaries impacted the process. Our point of view was to continue dialogue for peace. It should not be peace first and then dialogue.”
“We told him that the alienation of people needs to be addressed,” he said.
He said that they told Sharma that Article 370 and 35 A should not be fiddled with. Tampering or abrogating them is not acceptable to the people of the state.
“Prime Minister should address the parliament and assure the people of the state that Article 35A will be protected and not tampered with. Attorney General of India should submit in the Supreme Court that centre will safeguard the Article 35 A.”
“These Confidence building measures must be done for sustainable dialogue on Kashmir,” he said.
“We told him that an impartial, credible commission should be set up to probe killings that have happened in Kashmir so that their families know who killed their relatives,” he said.
He said that they insisted that the political prisoners languishing in jails should be released and their cases reviewed. And the youth arrested in 2016 must be released and their cases withdrawn.
“Security forces and their bunkers in civilian population must be reviewed and removed,” he said.
He said that they told the representative that it is the responsibility of GoI to make the process credible which will be a favour to whole country.
“The dialogue process should not die before it is born as that will be a disservice to the people of the country,” he said. (KNS)