Kashmiri girls pray at a shrine in Srinagar. (AP)

New Delhi, April 24: One of the four groups set up by the Prime Minister to find solutions to Kashmir’s problems has suggested repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

An information cell on missing persons and opening up of the Line of Control to allow students from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir into the Valley’s universities are among the other proposals made by the panels.

Their reports were submitted at the third round table conference here today. The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was held amid doubts over what it could achieve, especially because separatist leaders stayed away. Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad conducted the talks with around 45 delegates.

The government said there was a consensus on at least putting the groups’ suggestions into practice. There is also a fifth group, on Centre-state relations, whose report is about to be finalised soon.

Leaders of mainstream parties urged the Prime Minister to share the progress of the Centre’s “behind-the-scenes” negotiations with Pakistan.

With President Pervez Musharraf and his foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri making statements about “substantial progress” in resolving the Kashmir issue, Singh was asked to take the Valley’s democratic forces into confidence.

The demand to repeal the act giving the army extraordinary powers has been made by several organisations. Singh promised to check human rights violations but linked troop cuts with the security situation.

The panels, with representatives from all parties, also want better connectivity between the two Kashmirs. New transit points on the Jammu-Ladakh route have been proposed.

The group on economic development recommended infrastructure development programmes.

However, even as the round table conference was on, the BJP said the meeting had drifted from its original agenda. The attitude of the Centre and the Congress-PDP government in the state promoted “soft secessionism”, the party alleged.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said the party had registered its “dissent’’ at the meeting.

The conference had drifted from the “original agenda’’ of strengthening Centre-state relations, secularism and the rule of law, he said.