Justice Anand Centre’s interlocutor for J&K

NEW DELHI: Former Chief Justice of India, A S Anand, has been named the chief interlocutor of the Centre to deal with the crisis in Jammu and Kashmir following the Amarnath land transfer row.

Justice Anand, who was also the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, will have negotiations with leaders of the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti and representatives of the Valley in his attempts to find a solution acceptable to both sections.

Another central representative, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, is expected to arrive in the Kashmir valley on Wednesday to review the security situation and discuss measures to restore normalcy.

Mr Narayanan���s tour ��� which will be followed by a visit to Jammu on Thursday ��� comes close on the heels of the separatists��� march to the UN office in Srinagar to demand the international watchdog���s intervention in J&K and protest against the alleged ���human rights abuses��� by security forces deployed in the valley. Though the march, involving tens of thousands of people, was peaceful, it was marred by raising of provocative anti-India, pro-Pakistan and even pro-LeT slogans.

During his visit, Mr Narayanan ��� who will be accompanied by Intelligence Bureau chief P C Haldar and senior Union home ministry officials ��� will be meeting senior police officials and bureaucrats to discuss the present crisis in the Valley arising out the separatists��� propaganda about an alleged ���economic blockade.���

He is also likely to go into the security implications of the planned march of separatists to the Idgah on Friday.
Though the top priority of the government now is to restore peace and normalcy to the Valley at the earliest, the lurking issue of assembly polls may also come up for discussions. A view has emerged within the government that the current security situation is not conducive for state polls, indicating the possibility of their postponement to sometime next year.

Security agencies are of the view that with separatists on a resurgence in the Valley, a possible poll boycott by them would substantively erode the voter turnout, thus putting a question mark on the credibility of the democratic exercise. It may not take much convincing to get the EC to put off elections as the Commission too realises that deployment of poll staff and para-military forces amid unrest in the Valley would be virtually impossible.