Last Updated: Thursday, December 24, 2009 | 4:42 PM ET
The Associated Press
A committee set up by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommends autonomy for the disputed Kashmir region. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)A committee appointed by the Indian prime minister has recommended autonomy for the disputed Kashmir region where rebel groups have fought a bloody insurgency against Indian rule for two decades.
The Himalayan region has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947 when the two rivals gained independence from Britain.
India's portion of the Muslim-majority region once had a large degree of autonomy but that gradually eroded over the years with greater control exercised by the federal government in New Delhi.
The committee, set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006, suggested restoring Kashmir's former autonomy.
The group's report was delivered to Omar Abdullah, Indian Kashmir's top elected official, late Wednesday. Abdullah advised Kashmir's law minister to "prepare an action plan for its implementation" in consultation with the Indian government, an official statement said.
The central government has so far not responded to the panel's recommendations.
Abdullah's ruling National Conference party, the biggest pro-India group in Indian Kashmir, has long advocated autonomy for the region. The group passed a resolution in the state legislature in 2000 recommending greater autonomy but it was dismissed by New Delhi.
More than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting in the troubled region since 1989 to win independence from India or a merger with neighbouring Pakistan. The uprising and subsequent Indian military's crackdown have killed more than 68,000 people, most of them civilians.
In the past, separatist groups have rejected any autonomy under Indian rule.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist leader in Kashmir, said he would study the report and then respond.
Subject: Kashmir needs autonomy: Indian committee--CBC Canada 
Fri Dec 25, 2009 9:49 am
