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SRINAGER, Wednesday (AFP) A moderate Muslim separatist leader and a panel which is trying to widen representation in upcoming Kashmiri elections accused hardliners in India's Hindu nationalist government of derailing peace efforts.

Ram Jethmalani, the head of the government-backed Kashmir Committee, described Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani's refusal to meet moderate leader Shabir Shah during his ongoing visit here as "discouraging".

"It was a move which may have the consequence of derailing the peace process," Jethmalani said.

Shah, who heads the Democratic Freedom Party, arrived here last week for talks with the committee, which is trying to woo separatists to the elections set to begin September 16.

Shah, who has spent more than two decades in Indian prisons as a "prisoner of conscience", did not name Advani, widely seen as a hardliner. But he blamed his futile bids to meet leaders here on "hawks" in the government.

"Hawks in the Indian government have managed to put impediments not only in my path but also in the path of the Kashmir Committee whom Kashmiris see as their friends," Shah said.

"What is the policy of the government vis-a-vis Kashmir is not known to us. First, they invite separatist leaders for talks through the Kashmir Committee and then back out," he said.

Shah said his regional party was not opposed to the elections, but argued that it would support a process which can end the 13-year-old violence that has left more than 36,500 people dead since 1989 in the Himalayan region.

"We have been neither against the democratic process nor we are scared of elections. But merely a change of government (in Kashmir) is not our motive -- we want to resolve the Kashmir issue," Shah said. 

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