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Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar
The Kashmir Committee headed by former Union law minister Ram Jethmalani arrived in Srinagar on Friday afternoon on a two-day visit to the Valley, even as Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah called their mission to seek peace with separatist leaders a "tamasha."
The committee has a series of meetings scheduled with the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist organisations, but none with any elected representatives.
The Kashmir Committee comprises editor of The Asian Age newspaper M J Akbar, executive managing editor of The Times of India Dileep Padgaonkar and senior Supreme Court lawyer and former law minister Shanti Bhushan.
Immediately after their arrival, the committee members drove down to Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Ahmed Shah's residence for a meeting.
Talking to reporters after the four-hour meeting, Jethmalani said the discussions with Shah were positive.
"I am glad to report that we have not reached a deadlock. The dialogue will continue till the basic issue is thrashed out. We discussed every aspect of the problem. This dialogue must be sustained and continued," he said.
Abdullah, however, saw nothing positive in the whole exercise. ''I am a spectator watching the tamasha from a distance,'' he told a private news channel, expressing his displeasure over the committee's decision to hold parleys only with separatist leaders.
"It is a chess game...let us watch whose horse will fall and whose king would be checked successfully," he said.
Shabir Shah said he was happy with the way the talks were progressing. "I am ready to meet the prime minister and his deputy if conducive conditions are created for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue," he added.
"I told the [Kashmir] committee members that all jailed separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mohammed Yasin Malik, must be released and the Disturbed Areas Act must be withdrawn. We leave it to them to convince the prime minister," he said.
Reacting to Dr Farooq Abdullah's statement, Jethmalani said: "I am too much of a democrat to dispute Farooq's right to say what he said, but I humbly disagree with his perceptions."
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