J&K shouldn’t be another Syria: Dineshwar Sharma

NEWDELHI: The biggest challenge and the top priority in Kashmir are to deradicalise youth and militants and prevent the state from turning into a Syria of India, said Dineshwar Sharma, the newlynamed interlocutor for talks in Jammu and Kashmir.

An old Kashmir hand who headed the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for two years from December 2015, Sharma said his mission to bring an end to violence would include talking to anyone “even a rickshaw puller or a cart puller” who can contribute so that peace is ushered in the state “as soon as possible”.

“I feel the pain and sometimes I become emotional also. I want to see this kind of violence ends as soon as possible from all sides.

The youth of Kashmir like Zakir Musa (Kashmir al-Qaeda chief) and Burhan Wani (slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander) get hype when they talk about (establishing Islamic) Caliphate,” said Sharma.

He said the way Kashmir’s youth was moving, “which is radicalisation”, will ultimately “finish Kashmir.

“I am worried about the people of Kashmir. If all this picked up, the situation will be like Yemen, Syria and Libya. People will start fighting in so many groups. So, it is very important that everybody, all of us, contribute ...”

“I will have to convince the youth of Kashmir that they are only ruining their future and the future of all Kashmiris in the name of whether they call it azadi (independence), Islamic caliphate or Islam...”

“I am open to talking to everybody... He can be an ordinary student, ordinary youth, a rickshawwala or a the lawala with some good idea. I will consider that,” he said.

The former IPS officer, who led the spy agency’s “Islamist Terrorism Desk”, was widely known to have advocated a policy of arresting the problem by counselling and reforming, instead of arresting the potential recruits of the global terror network.

He is known to have established friendly relationships with arrested militants in a bid to reform them when he was assistant director IB from 1992-94 — the time when militancy was at its peak in J&K.