Government sets up panels to look into troop reduction in Jammu & Kashmir

NEW DELHI: In a significant step — indicative of efforts to chalk out a lasting solution to the Kashmir crisis — the Central government has constituted three committees to look at troop reduction and withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from Jammu and Kashmir.

The committees have been constituted after several days of high-level consultations between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his senior colleagues after Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s PDP threatened to withdraw support to the Congress-led coalition government in J&K.

Sources in the government said though the ‘provocation’ for the committees was Sayyed’s threat, it was “within the parameters of the ongoing efforts” to find a lasting solution to Kashmir imbroglio.

Welcoming the move, Sayeed said it was a “dignified” solution to his demand, and ordered his ministers in the J&K to go back to cabinet meeting and stop their ongoing boycott of the government. According to sources, Sayeed has been assured that deliberate steps would be taken over the summer period to reduce troops in the state.

The indications available as of now are that the government may first go in for withdrawal of the Army’s 27 Division from Jammu region, and then begin to pull back some units from the Kashmir Valley into the Jammu side. But that is conditional to a relatively peaceful next few months.