Pertinently, India has consistently said that Pakistan needs to crackdown on anti-Indian terrorist groups operating in Pakistan, including those who masterminded and attacked Mumbai on 26/11. No matter then the Kashmiri separatists, on their part, are toeing the dotted-line as in the wake of the frenzy whipped up, they seem to be hell-bent to strangulate India, well before July 15 when the Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is scheduled to visits Pakistan towards taking the next step on the road to reducing the trust deficit between India and Pakistan.

The allegations are ripe that people or agencies behind the current turmoil in Kashmir want to either sabotage force Delhi to negotiate on Kashmir rather than insisting on Pakistan acting against Mumbai attackers as was recently accepted by the moderate faction All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader professor Abdul Gani Bhat when he was quoted as saying, “I do appreciate India for having taken a bold step by resuming dialogue with Pakistan but what is the purpose of the dialogue when Delhi has been insisting on a discussion on terrorism, security and peace," vehemently maintaining, “let the two sides start a serious dialogue on Kashmir and once it was done turmoil in Kashmir may take the back seat,” and then inadvertently qualifying by adding that once the India-Pakistan dialogue on the Kashmir issue progressed there was need for involving ‘us’ in the parleys on the plea that ‘we are a party to the dispute’ and a ‘solution hammered out during triangular talks alone could be durable’. He also said that the anger against injustices, alienation and deprivation would end once India and Pakistan start sustained dialogue on the settlement of the Kashmir issue.

As a set-back to such elements, since the Pakistan government has been insisting that efforts to resolve the Kashmir issue must be made part of any dialogue with India, PoK Prime Minister has advised Pakistan government not to link up-coming talks with India to resolution of the Kashmir issue as, what he termed as internal vulnerabilities and formidable security challenge from the militants, have left Pakistan weak and not in a position to effectively fight the case of Kashmir. Suggesting that Pakistan should first resolve small irritants and controversial issues before finally sorting out the core issue of Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider was quoted by 'The News' that Pakistan and India should maintain status quo on Kashmir for some time and should resolve other issues before taking up Kashmir.

However, earlier in the week, the separatists kind of achieved their break-through and the Kashmir boil found its first political victim, when Chief Minister of J&K Omar Abdullah yielding and called for a political solution to Kashmir. Abdullah said, “The aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir can’t be assuaged only by development, good governance and economic packages but needs a political solution.”

In an appeal circulated through J&K government's information department Abdullah said, “We must work together to find a solution that can lead to a lasting peace in J&K as per the aspirations of the people of this great land,” while maintaining that there was a need to work together to find a solution to the Kashmir imbroglio and also to facilitate a dialogue between India and Pakistan as well as a dialogue between the Centre and various shades of opinion in the state.

The Chief Minister said his party National Conference (NC) is for autonomy adding, “But I am not averse to move beyond it, if there is a solution other than autonomy that is acceptable to both India and Pakistan and meets the aspirations of the people of J&K.” Now everybody knows that in periods of tension the Valley’s mainstream parties and politicians are easily cowed into submission. Not surprising though, the best way they know not to incur the wrath of militant elements is to issue statements that lend themselves to pro-extremist or anti-Indian propaganda. One should not be surprised now if mainstream regional parties abdicate their responsibility, and prefer not to take a reasoned stand.

Now Kashmir situation casts a shadow over Amarnath Yatra, as an air of uncertainty and apprehension has gripped thousands of aspiring Hindu pilgrims, the continuance of Kashmir boil is sure to mar their spiritual quest for an annual ritual of traversing hundreds and thousands of miles to reach the 3,888 meter-high cave of Amarnath shrine in south Kashmir. Notwithstanding any doubt about the feeling of genuine warmth of Kashmir’s Muslim majority toward the visiting devotees, the situation is pregnant with negative probabilities, for if pilgrims are attacked by pro-Pakistan elements in the Valley, or by terrorist modules, the situation can only worsen from here.

Earlier separatists had been demanding a curtailed Amarnath Yatra and on June18, hard-line separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani threatened that he will resort to agitation in case the annual Amarnath Yatra is not restricted to the original fifteen days’ schedule while publicly demanding that the Amarnath pilgrimage be curtailed to 15 days instead of the present two months. While this, observers believe, smacks of some sort of conspiracy on one count to derail the Amarnath Yatra so that less and less Yatris travel to Kashmir for the age-old spiritual passage which kind of juxtaposes Kashmir with the Hindu cult. (Though the separatists are denying this charge saying, "Our protests are against the human rights violations and increased killing of youths in Kashmir. We are not aiming at anyone.")

On the other hand, the continuance of agitation in itself points to the involvement of certain vested interest in keeping Kashmir on boil with a mission to de-rail Indo-Pak talks once again or, as Home Minister P C Chidambaram has been saying that LeT is fomenting trouble (The Home Ministry and its intelligence departments inputs show that the current escalation of violence in Kashmir has been instigated by the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba), obviously LeT is instigating a pressure tactics as it wants India to leave claim on Hafeez Sayeed as the main accuse of Mumbai attack.

Notwithstanding all this, the trouble, however, lies with the unpredictable methods of extremist and separatist politics, which tends to take its cue from Pakistan and always treads as per their wish-list rather than devising their own ways of finding a solution for lasting peace in their and people’s this very life rather than after Quamat.