Srinagar: Former Intelligence Bureau chief Dineshwar Sharma, who was appointed as the ‘representative’ by Government of India to understand the “legitimate aspirations” of people in Jammu and Kashmir, arrived in Srinagar on Monday.
Sources said that Sharma landed in Srinagar airport along with team of officials, presumably from Indian Home Ministry, at around noon. He is on a five-day visit to state to start the multi-layered dialogue process. He was received by divisional Commissioner Kashmir Answer Ahmad Khan and other officials.
Sharma has already sent invitation to mainstream parties like Congress, National Conference, Democratic Party Nationalist (DPN) and others, asking them meet him.
Shrama is also meeting Governor N N Vohra, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti besides leaders of tiling BJP and PDP.
Mehbooba has already pinned hopes on Sharma whom she different to the previous interlocutors sent by the UPA and other regimes at New Delhi, saying they didn’t have an official position as he enjoys the rank and status of a cabinet secretary.
Sources in National Conference, the grand old party of Kashmir, said that former chief minister and its working president Omar Abdullah would lead a party delegation to meet Sharma. Farooq Abdullah won’t meet him on invitation but if he calls upon him, the sources said.
Similarly, Congress has also decided to meet the representative who has the mandate for a “sustained dialogue with all stakeholders” to find a political solution to the Kashmir issue.
Chairman of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) Engineer Rashid, who was last month questioned by NIA, will also meet him.
The Joint Resistance Leadership has already announced not to meet him. They said if present dispensation in New Delhi was not even ready for autonomy, how can it address or engage with the Kashmiris “political will and aspiration of self-determination.”
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