The Jammu and Kashmir interlocutors on Wednesday submitted their final report to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, focusing on a “permanent political settlement of the Kashmir problem.”
“The report deals with issues pertaining to economic, social and cultural aspects of Jammu and Kashmir,” eminent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar told journalists outside the North Block office of the Home Minister soon after submitting the report. He was flanked by the other interlocutors, academic Radha Kumar and the former Information Commissioner, M.M. Ansari.
The three-member panel was appointed by the Centre exactly a year ago with a mandate to suggest the contours of a political settlement to the Jammu and Kashmir problem. “The report aims at a permanent political settlement of the Kashmir problem,” Mr. Padgaonkar said, refusing to elaborate further on its contents.
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“We have told the Home Minister that the report is the outcome of our interaction with more than 600 delegations, mass meetings in all 22 districts of Jammu and Kashmir and three roundtable conferences of women activists, scholars and cultural activists. We have adhered to the time frame of one year in giving our final report,” he said. The report offers important insights, as it reflected in an “accurate and comprehensive” manner the views of the broadest possible spectrum of a cross-section of people of the State, he said.
Mr. Padgaonkar said Mr. Chidambaram told them that he would take the report forward and share it with the all-party delegation that had visited Kashmir last September. “The Home Minister has asked us to make ourselves available to the all-party delegation. After this, the report should be brought to the public domain because we want it to be debated across the country, and in particular in Jammu and Kashmir.”