After three years in power the saffron party escalated killings among cops soldiers and militants but found no solution and in the end having faced the reality BJP government appointed Dineshwar Sharma, as the government’s special representative for Jammu and Kashmir for negotiations.

1979-batch IPS officer from the Kerala cadre, a former IB director, said the Hurriyat shares equal space , a former IB director Dineshwar however has a tough task ahead, considering that the government had cracked down only a few months ago on Hurriyat leaders and on protesters pelting stones.

At a time when all eyes will be on whether and how he engages with the Hurriyat leadership he told IE media "I am likely to visit Kashmir next week and speak to all the stakeholders. As the Union home minister has said, I will be talking to all the stakeholders, which means I will be talking to all Indian citizens living in Kashmir. It will also depend upon how things go once I visit Kashmir. The Hurriyat shares equal space".

Dineshwar also added "I will go through the reports prepared by earlier committees and interlocutors to see what recommendations were made and what happened to them. I will look into all of this and meet the people of Kashmir. Only after that can I say how different this [special representative] can be".

However Former interlocutor MM Ansari said the appointment of a former cop showed the government did not believe problems in Kashmir can be resolved without goli (bullets) or gaali (abuse).

“That the government wants to start a dialogue process is welcome but the appointment of a police officer shows that even though the Prime Minister had said that embracing Kashmiris is the solution, not bullets or abuses, the Indian establishment continues to look at Kashmir through an intelligence and security prism,” Ansari said. “Coming from that background, he (Sharma) has no mandate for removal of AFSPA, no mandate to talk to all stakeholders, including Hurriyat, and will only seek solutions in the intelligence or security realm, without dealing with Kashmir as a political problem,” Ansari added.