Jammu, July 23 (IANS) The three-member Kashmir Committee, headed by Rajya Sabha member Ram Jethmalani, met a cross-section of people and sought their views on the Kashmir issue on the second day of their visit here Saturday.
Jethamalani, former diplomat V.K. Grover and rights activist Madhu Kishwar met lawyers, social groups and Kashmiri migrants, besides Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members in this winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
Talking to newspersons after the meetings, Jethmalani said: ‘Our mission is to find resolution to Kashmir problem, which is decades old now.’
He said that terrorism, which was started and supported by Pakistan, ‘has now become a menace for that country.’
He said there was a dire need to settle the issue with ‘some give and take from both sides (India and Pakistan), as the stated positions cannot resolve the issue.’
Kashmir Committee members also visited Kashmiri Pandit migrants at the newly set up colony at Jagati, on the outskirts of Jammu.
Jethmalani added: ‘I told separatists in very clear terms that they will have to accept back Kashmiri Pandits to Kashmir Valley, without which solution is not possible.’
He said it was his firm belief that Kashmiri Pandits who fled from the valley during the 1990s should return to their hearths and homes in the valley.
The Kashmir Committee, a non-official panel, is working out to find a solution to the crisis in Jammu and Kashmir, almost in a parallel exercise to that being conducted by three central government-appointed interlocutors.
Earlier, the panel undertook two visits to the Kashmir Valley, where the members met leaders of the separatist groups, including hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
