Centre’s J&K interlocutor meets governor in Delhi

New Delhi: Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre’s special representative for talks on Kashmir, called on J&K governor N.N. Vohra on Sunday and discussed the broad parameters of the proposed talks with all stake holders. The one hour-long meeting took place at the Kashmir House in New Delhi. After the meeting, a release issued by the Raj Bhavan said the governor briefed Mr Sharma “in great detail about the environment and the expectations and hopes of the political parties and the people at large from the ensuing dialogue”.

In a first in the history of predominated Muslim Kashmir Valley, the representatives of all faiths including Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism on Sunday joined the Christian clergy to ring the newly installed bell at a 121year-old church.

“It was a successful and pleasing display of the brotherhood and religious tolerance,” said Sydney Mark Rath, a spokesman at Srinagar’s Holy Family Catholic Church.

Following the onehour long regular church service, the special ringing ceremony was held in presence of people belonging to all communities who later joined the hosts at the community lunch.

The inter-religious ceremony for the occasion was held at the Catholic Church along Srinagar’s Moulana Azad Road in order to continue with Kashmir’s ethos of pluralism, said Mr Rath.