Centre cautioned against flirting with separatists

Jammu, Feb 2 (PTI) Panun Kashmir, an oufit ofdisplaced Kashmiri Pandits, today cautioned the Centre against"flirting" with the separatists.

"We are of the considered view that the problem inKashmir is neither constitutional nor political and economic.

It is basically problem of uncontested communalism," PanunKashmir Chairman Ajay Chrungoo told reporters here today.

He claimed that the Centre was "continuing with itsflirtations with various separatist formations in the state"and the respectability being conferred upon them was visible.

Pampering and promoting variants of communalism andseparatism rather than investing in secular nation building,Chrungoo said, has led to gradual self-annihilation.

"We urge government to realise that retrievalof situation in the state does not lie in cohabiting andtraversing the path of separatism and pandering to communalforces," the Panun Kashmir leader said.

On interlocutors, he said, "There is apprehensionsthat the appointment of the new interlocutors in J&K has infact been a decision taken in continuity to push forward theso called... �Musharraf Plan� which has only grown since theinterlocutors have started functioning."

He urged the government to come clean on the issue.

Flanked by the historian Hari Omar, Chrungoosaid, "We have keenly observed the functioning of theinterlocutors.... We don''t feel hopeful that they have beenappointed to retrieve the situation in the state, combateffectively and resolutely the pernicious separatist movementand undo the damage done to the national interests." PTI AB