India non-flexible on Kashmir issue: Shah

New Delhi, Feb 22 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party chief Shabir Ahmad Shah today said India was not showing flexibilty on the Kashmir issue in talks with Pakistan which was ''hampering'' the peace process.

''Pakistan has shown flexibilty on many issues pertaining to Kashmir but India is yet to do anything like that. The peace process should be taken up step by step on which India is non-flexible,'' Mr Shah told reporters after an hour-long meeting with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri at the Pakistan House here.

The DFP chief raised the issue of demilitarisation and formation of a Working Group of representatives of India, Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

''We impressed upon Mr Kasuri to convey to the government of India to demilitarise Jammu and Kashmir at the block level. Custodial killings and human rights violations are rampant and demilitarisation will help infuse confidence among the people of the state,'' Mr Shah said.

The separatist leader said he had urged Mr Kasuri to form a Working Group of the representatives of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri people to resolve the vexed issue.

''The formation of the working group will help in providing the benefits of the Confidence Building Measures to the people of the state.

''The confidence building measures taken by New Delhi and Islamabad have no impact at the ground level in Jammu and Kashmir.

I told the Pakistan Foreign Minister to raise this issue with his Indian counterpart,'' he said.

Mr Kasuri, who was here on a three-day official visit, held back-to-back meetings with Kashmiri separatists at the Pakistan High Commission here.

Sources said Mr Kasuri, who was assisted by senior Pakistani officials at the meeting, asked the warring secessionists to forge unity and tried to convince them to support the India-Pakistan Peace process.

''If the separatists come together on one platform it will be easy for Pakistan to negotiate with India on Kashmir,'' they said.

Pakistan has been making efforts for long to bring the separatists together in the ''larger interest of the Kashmir cause'' but it has failed time and again.

As part of the efforts, every senior Pakistani leader and official during their India visit held talks with the separatists here.

This was the separatists' second meeting with a senior Pakistan functionary in the past three months here after their November meeting with Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan, on the sidelines of the Indo-Pak foreign-secretary level dialogue.

UNI