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Centre’s emissary in J&K

Praveen Swami

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar meets Islamist leaders in Srinagar

Photo: Nissar Ahmad

CONTINUING DISSENT: Women stage a protest in Srinagar on Wednesday after the death of a person who was injured in a police firing during the march to Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, on Monday. —

SRINAGAR: Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar arrived here on Wednesday for a controversial eleventh-hour peace mission supported by the Union government.

Sri Ravi Shankar met Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who heads the hardline Tehreek-i-Hurriyat, as well as the Srinagar cleric and All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairperson Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a back-channel effort to hammer out a peace deal between Islamists in Kashmir and Hindutva groups in Jammu.

Few details were available of the meetings, but sources in the Tehreek-i-Hurriyat said Mr. Geelani urged his visitor to persuade the Hindu groups in Jammu to end their violent protest.

Governor N.N. Vohra’s office was unavailable for comment on Sri Ravi Shankar’s mission, but official sources said Sri Ravi Shankar had been accorded the status of an official state guest for the duration of his visit. He was received at Srinagar airport by the staff of the State government’s protocol division, normally handling high-level political visits.

The government said Sri Ravi Shankar had been in touch with both secessionist leaders since the outbreak of the Shrine Board violence in July.

In identically-worded letters sent to Mr. Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq last month, copies of which are with The Hindu, Sri Ravi Shankar asked that through the government or anyone else, the Shrine Board or any other institution, basic sanitation, medical treatment, food, shelter and other facilities be provided to the yatris.

Just as Haj pilgrims enjoy government support, basic facilities must be provided to the pilgrims visiting the Amarnath shrine, he said.

- PHOTO: PTI/ S. IRFAN

Chairman of the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani (left) with the Art of Living Foundation founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Srinagar on Wednesday.

However, he also made the suggestion that if the majority of the population in Kashmir is in favour of autonomy, Jammu and Kashmir should be made separate States, a highly-controversial long-standing demand of the Hindu religious right.

Sri Ravi Shankar is the latest in a long series of quasi-official mediators deployed by the Government of India in so-far unsuccessful efforts to open lines of communication with Islamists in J&K.

Earlier figures in this back-channel dialogue have included Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, lawyer Ashok Bhan, commentator Prem Shankar Jha and the former Research and Analysis wing chief, Amarjit Dulat.

Sri Ravi Shankar is the first spiritual leader to be involved in this dialogue.

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