Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed will visit Mumbai on January 20 to persuade industrialists to invest in his troubled state.
The Mufti is scheduled to meet with numerous business delegations and will brief them about the investment opportunities that exist in Jammu & Kashmir while he is in the city.
This will be his first visit to the financial capital of India after he took over as the chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir on November 2, 2002.
"He has just confirmed his visit to us. We are arranging for his meetings with different business delegations. He is also likely to give a speech at one of the five-star hotels in Mumbai," said a Confederation of Indian Industry official.
It is not clear whether the Mufti will meet any of the Bollywood personalities during his visit.
The Indian film industry has started looking overseas for beautiful locales to shoot films in, rather than take a risk in Kashmir. The last big budget film shot in the state was Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir that had Sanjay Dutt and Hrithik Roshan in lead roles.
Earlier, former J&K chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah too visited Mumbai on similar missions. During a chat with rediff.com, Abdullah had also said: "Every time I meet Kashmiris who come down to Mumbai for business, they have only one thing to say -- 'Kashmir is unsafe.' Come to Kashmir and see for yourself. No one will touch a hair on your head. Nothing will happen to you. You are as safe there as you are here."
Abdullah had insisted that his state was a safe place for investors and tourists, but not much was done to dispel the doubts that lurked within the industrialists minds.
Jammu & Kashmir was a favourite tourist destination of Mumbaikars before terrorists' guns broke the calm of the beautiful state. But since 1989, when armed insurgency reared its head, not many wish to put the state on their travel itinerary.
After taking over as the chief minister, the Mufti said -- in the People's Democratic Party common minimum programme -- that one of his main priorities will be to ensure that state government funds reach the right people. He also said that special emphasis will be laid on tourism and employment.
In the recent past, chief ministers of various Indian states including Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand -- have come to Mumbai to woo investors.
Meanwhile, sources said that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi too is likely to come to Mumbai to attract investments on January 19.
