Home Secretary Pillai to visit Srinagar

Union Home Secretary G K Pillai will visit Srinagar on Wednesday to review the law and order situation in violence-hit Kashmir. He is scheduled to meet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and some top officials of the state government, official sources said.

The Cabinet Committee on Security met had met in New Delhi this morning and is understood to have discussed the situation in Kashmir where army has been deployed to assist the civil authorities in restoring normalcy following violence.

The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reviewed the situation in the wake of the spiralling protests in Srinagar following the killing of three persons yesterday. Army staged a flag march in some areas of curfew-bound Srinagar on Wednesday morning.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister A K Antony, Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrashekar, NSA Shiv Shankar Menon, Home Secretary Pillai, and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar attended the meeting. There was no official word on any decision taken at the hour-long meeting. The state government had yesterday sought the help of the army after curfew was imposed in the city.

Earlier, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju had said that army would remain on the streets in Srinagar till it was necessary, but the government would like it to be short.