SRINAGAR: An all-party group of Indian lawmakers visited violence-wracked Kashmir on Monday but key local leaders refused to meet them and said New Delhi had no answers to the region's crisis.
Hopes that the visit could break the cycle of violence were undermined by the decision of Kashmiri separatist leaders to reject the offer of face-to-face talks.
Syed Ali Geelani, the veteran separatist who has organised the almost daily demonstrations throughout the summer, rejected any meeting, saying nothing positive could emerge from it.
"It is a farce that they come here, saying they are assessing the situation, when everyone knows that innocents are being killed and the curfews have turned much of Kashmir into a jail," Farooq told AFP.
"We can not support these half-hearted gestures that are just to make the government look as if they are serious."
Separatists Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik also declined to meet with the all-party delegation, their supporters told reporters on Monday morning.
Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the state government opposition, said she would send party members to the talks at a conference centre in the region's main town of Srinagar, but would not attend herself.
"They know my views, and we have not changed any policy," she said, adding that a strict curfew across Kashmir should be lifted immediately.
The delegation from New Delhi, led by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, also planned to meet representatives of the struggling tourism industry and other businesses, according to officials.
"We have to talk to each other. And those who have grievances against the government have to talk to the administration," Prime Minister Singh said last week.
But solutions to the unrest in Kashmir, home to a 20-year insurgency against Indian rule, appear as distant as ever, with public resentment hardening with each civilian death.
Delegates did not speak to the media early Monday, but Pawan Kumar Bansal of the ruling Congress party said Sunday that they would be getting "direct feedback from the ground".
"I will not raise the expectations. It is part of a long-drawn process which we have to carry out," he said. Among the delegates was Arun Jaitley, a senior figure in the main Hindu nationalist BJP opposition, which opposes making any security or political concessions to separatists.
Indian politicians head to Kashmir as death toll soars past 100
A group of Indian lawmakers on Monday visit violence-wracked Kashmir, where more than 100 civilians have been killed in months of clashes between protestors and security forces.
The government announced the all-party fact-finding mission last week after an emergency meeting in New Delhi following almost daily violent separatist demonstrations in the region throughout the summer.
"We have to talk to each other. And those who have grievances against the government have to talk to the administration," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the meeting on Wednesday.
But answers to the unrest in Muslim-majority Kashmir, home to a 20-year insurgency against Indian rule, appear as distant as ever with public resentment hardening with each civilian death.
The delegation, led by Home Minister P Chidambaram, will meet representatives of the struggling tourism industry and other businesses, as well as political groups, according to officials.
It is the first time a minister or mainstream political leader has visited the region since the demonstrations began in June.
"All of us will be getting direct feedback from the ground and we will be there to acquaint ourselves with the situation," one delegate, Pawan Kumar Bansal of the ruling Congress party, told reporters on Sunday before the visit.
"I will not raise the expectations.... To say that tomorrow the Kashmir problem is going to be solved will not be correct."
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that there would be 38 delegates including Arun Jaitley, a senior figure in the main Hindu nationalist BJP opposition, which opposes making any security or political concessions.
Plans to hold talks with all factions in Indian Kashmir appeared to have been dashed by leading Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Geelani's refusal to participate.
In the wave of rallies that began on June 11, paramilitary troops have regularly opened fire after coming under attack from violent anti-India protestors throwing rocks and stones.
Many of those killed have been young men or teenagers, and news of each death has brought more people on to the streets and led to further deadly clashes with the security forces.
Police said a 22-year-old woman was killed during protests on Sunday evening in the northern town of Sopore, bringing the number of protestors and bystanders to have died to 106.
Curfews and strikes have shut down the region's summer capital Srinagar and many others towns for weeks at a time, with residents complaining of shortages of food and essential medicine.
Kashmir, a beautiful mountainous region in the Himalayan foothills, has been a regular flashpoint between India and Pakistan since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
The two rival nations fought wars over control of Kashmir immediately after partition, leaving it divided between Indian and Pakistani sectors, and again in 1965. The prime minister's office said the delegation's trip would "form an important input into the government's evolving response" to the situation in Kashmir.
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