Centre may announce names of Kashmir interlocutors on Thursday

The government is likely to announce the names of interlocutors to begin the process of dialogue with all sections of people in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday and the chairman of the group will enjoy the rank of a Union Cabinet Minister.

Official sources said the Cabinet Committee on Security will finalise the names of the group of three to four interlocutors and the chairman is expected to be a political person.

The interlocutors, after their appointment, will immediately initiate the process of dialogue with political parties, groups, youth and student organisations, civil society organisations and other stakeholders, including the separatists.

The interlocutors will be appointed as part of the Centre's eight-point Kashmir peace initiative announced on Saturday.

As part of the initiative, the Jammu and Kashmir government will hold a meeting of the Unified Command on Thursday to review the deployment of security forces in the Kashmir Valley, with particular reference to de-scaling the number of bunkers, check-points etc, and to review the notification of areas as 'disturbed areas'.

The sanction order for the release of Rs 100 crore as Additional Central Assistance in order to make grants to schools and colleges for improvements of their infrastructure and Rs 5 lakh a ex-gratia relief to the families of each of those killed after June 11 will be given tomorrow for immediate disbursement.

Sources said all those who were arrested for pelting stones will be released after reviewing their cases.

However, cases of hardcore terrorists would not come for review.

Expressing satisfaction over the reopening of educational institutes, sources said the turnout of students in the rural areas was around 60 per cent while in urban areas it was relatively low -- around 35 per cent.