Government preparing comprehensive policy on Kashmir: Home Minister Rajnath Singh

NEW DELHI: A comprehensive policy on Kashmir is being prepared by the NDA government, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.

"We are preparing a comprehensive policy on Kashmir. We will announce it soon," he said.

Asked whether there is any proposal to appoint an interlocutor for having dialogue with various stakeholders like those named for the northeast, Singh said there was no such move.

"I am not in favour of appointing interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

In a recent interview with a fortnightly magazine, the Home Minister had said the past practices of appointing interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir must be discontinued as it was non-productive.

"Now the time has come to have a rethink on appointing interlocutors. Having said this, let me clarify that I am not averse to talks. But I am also not in favour of non-productive talks which are carried out by anti-nationals to burnish their own political image in either Jammu and Kashmir or the Northeast," he was quoted as having said in an interview to a fortnightly magazine 'Governance Now'.

Academician Radha Kumar, veteran journalist Dileep Padgaonkar and M M Ansari had been interlocutors on Kashmir during UPA rule.

Singh said the level of infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir has come down to a great extent and security forces were strictly guarding the International Border and LoC.

The Home Minister earlier had asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to identify "suitable land" for the rehabilitation of some three lakh Kashmiri Pandits who migrated from the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s due to militancy.

The Narendra Modi government has committed itself to the return of some 62,000 Kashmiri Pandit families with "full dignity" to their homes in the Valley and has earmarked Rs 500 crore for this in the 2014-15 Union budget.

Singh wrote to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for allocation of "suitable" land for creating dwelling units for these families under the government's plan for implementation of the rehabilitation scheme for migrants.