Dozens of Kashmiri activists staged an anti-India rally in the capital of Azad Kashmir on Monday, as India’s special interlocutor for the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir arrived in Srinagar on a five-day visit “to hold talks with all the stakeholders".

The rally, which began from Burhan Wani Chowk and ended near Garhipan, was organised by Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (PHJK), an organisation of post-1990 migrants from held Kashmir.

“India should acknowledge Kashmir as a disputed territory and hold tripartite talks,” read a banner carried by the rally's participants.

The protesters in Muzaffarabad maintained that the appointment of a new interlocutor was a ploy to weaken the ongoing anti-India movement in occupied Kashmir.

“Down with India’s double-dealing and deceit,” the protesters shouted, as they paraded through the main road.

“The move is aimed at overshadowing the sacrifices of the Kashmiri people so they can achieve their internationally acknowledged right to self-determination,” said PHJK chief Uzair Ahmed Ghazali.

India has stepped up repression and its National Investigating Agency was constantly intimidating Kashmiri leaders and their families with so-called terror funding cases, said Ghazali.

In addition to this, they have appointed a former spy “to normalise the situation” in the occupied territory, he added.

“In fact, this hollow and delusive move is directed at hoodwinking the international community at a time when efforts to expose Indian brutalities and duplicities across the world have picked up,” the PHJK chief maintained.

Pakistan People's Party leader Shaukat Javed Mir said no one was disinclined to hold dialogue, provided that the process was meant to be result-oriented and included all three parties to the dispute.

“Ironically, India’s track-record holds testimony to the bitter reality that she has always used dialogue – either with Pakistan or with the Kashmiris – as a tactic to buy time,” he maintained.

Last month, India appointed Dineshwar Sharma, a former Intelligence Bureau director, as the special representative for Jammu and Kashmir, to hold “sustained dialogue with all stakeholders”.

Talking to the media prior to his departure for Srinagar, Sharma had said no one should jump to conclusions before the process of talks began.

"I do not have a magic wand but my efforts should be judged with sincerity and not through the prism of the past," a Noida-based Indian news entity (WION) quoted him as saying on Sunday.

"I am going there without any preconceived notions. Everyone is welcome to meet me," he added.

However, the joint resistance leadership, comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, dismissed any possibility of a dialogue with him and described the offer as “a futile exercise".

On Monday, media quoted official sources as saying that Sharma would spend three days in the valley and two days in the Jammu region.

Some media reports also claimed that government officials made attempts to persuade Geelani to meet Sharma, but to no avail.

"While Geelani Sahib does not oppose a dialogue process, at the same time he is not ready to facilitate a process that is aimed at delaying rather than resolving the basic issue," reports quoted the sources close to the octogenarian leader as telling the media.

It may be recalled that over the last 15 years, three officially designated interlocutor groups headed by K.C. Pant, N.N. Vohra and Dilip Padgaonkar, respectively, have visited the disputed region, apparently to make headway in bringing peace to it though without addressing the core issue.