Mood gloomy over India-Pakistan talks

India has proposed foreign secretary-level dialogue with Pakistan, signaling a major breakthrough in relations frozen since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people died.

New Delhi blamed the assault on Pakistan-based militants.

India and Pakistan have held discussions in the past but without any breakthrough on Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region which each country holds in part but claims in full.

Kashmir has been the trigger for two of three wars between India and Pakistan.

In Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir, which has been in uproar over allegations about police killings of two teenage boys and where anti-India violence has resurfaced, the mood over the talks is gloomy.

“On the one hand, India is offering talks to Pakistan, and on the other hand it is killing innocent people in Kashmir,” said Javed Mir, senior leader of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.

A two-decade insurgency by militants who oppose New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir has claimed more than 47,000 lives, according to an official count. Human rights groups put the toll at twice as high.

Indian Kashmir had been relatively stable for a number of months, but demonstrations and militant violence that India says is stoked by Pakistan -- a charge denied by Islamabad -- has spiked in recent weeks.

“I don't think anything will emerge from these talks, I'm not hopeful at all,” said cab driver, Sheikh Shafayat, 40, in Indian Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar.

India proposed the talks, which Pakistan has welcomed, “because violence has staged a comeback in Kashmir,” Shafayat said.

On the weekend, thousands of demonstrators shouting “blood for blood” and “we want freedom” protested in Kashmir against the alleged security force killing of a second teenage boy in a week.

Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, vowed strong action over the boy's death and police have said they are investigating.

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