Initiate dialogue with stakeholders in Kashmir: Asaduddin Owaisi

HYDERABAD: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi today urged the Centre to initiate a dialogue with all stakeholders to end the impasse in Kashmir.

The situation in Kashmir has turned so grim that political parties such as the ruling PDP and Opposition National Conference as well as organisations such as Hurriyat have lost ground and eventually, the government will not be able to find anyone to talk to restore peace, Owaisi told reporters here.

"There is curfew going on for the past 50 days. People are getting killed in Kashmir. Even security personnel died. I went through the interviews of some of the experts. PDP and NC have lost their political ground. RAW chief said South Kashmir has become a limited zone. This is a very serious situation.

"Hurriyat has lost ground there. Then who should we initiate a dialogue with? We are entering the domain of uncertainty. So the government must initiate a dialogue," the Lok Sabha member from Hyderabad said.

Replying to query, he said though the separatists have been kept under house arrest, the government knows the ways and means to initiate a dialogue.

He also warned that as political parties lose their space there, the separatists are also losing (himmat) courage and hence, the situation is becoming serious.

To a question, he said the NDA government is facing many challenges including job creation and maintaining communal harmony in the country.

Earlier in the day, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti too sought the creation of an institutional mechanism of interlocutors to talk to all stakeholders in Kashmir to carry forward former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's policy of a dialogue internally as well as with Pakistan.

So far, 68 people have died in protests that started from July 8 after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter on July 8.