The Centre’s manner of handling this process has added to this new disenchantment. A few months ago, when the PDP had threatened to walk out of the ruling J&K coalition, demanding troop withdrawal from the state, the Centre intervened and framed a high-level committee led by Defence Minister A.K. Antony to investigate the feasibility of a troop cut on the ground. But before the committee started its work and arrived at a conclusion, the defence minister publicly ruled out even a modest cut in troops. The unexpected intervention of J&K Governor, Lt Gen (retd) S.K. Sinha in the debate, did not help. He termed the PDP’s demand as “obnoxious”.

From all indications it does seem that the period of relative tranquillity that saw Kashmir move towards peace may well be coming to an end. It is a fact that the infiltration levels have come down to an all-time low — seen as a fall-out of the Indo-Pak peace process. However, the sudden increase in activity across the LoC and a spurt of violence in the frontier district of Kupwara suggests the Pakistan establishment seems to have turned on the tap again. The security agencies say that more than 200 militants have already entered Kupwara district alone, even as a dozen infiltration bids were foiled along the LoC in the districts of Kupwara and Baramulla recently.

Kashmir has entered a critical phase and if immediate measures are not taken to push the Indo-Pak peace process forward, with visible outcomes on the ground, there is every likelihood that the earlier atmosphere of hope will be soon be overtaken by renewed bloodshed.