LONDON, OCT 09 (DNA) – Former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s spy agency, head Amarjit Singh Dulat says India is to be blamed for creating mess in the [Occupied] Kashmir in last 15 months.

He made these remarks during a debate with a former Pakistani head of intelligence in London on Friday night, urging the need for “imagination” and dialogue going forward.

“Heavy handedness has never worked in Kashmir…actually it doesn’t work anywhere as we’ve seen recently in Spain,” Mr. Dulat said at the start of the debate.

“I think if there is one message that comes out of Kashmir, not today, not yesterday or the day before but as far back as one can remember…you can achieve a lot through love and compassion but you can never achieve it by force. That is the mistake we have created in the last 15 months,” Mr Dulat said.

Kashmir is part of India, an integral part of India and its not going anywhere but we need to deal with Kashmir in a more civilized manner.”

Opening the debate Ehsan-ul-Haq, the former director general of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence said the situation in Kashmir, which had remained the oldest unresolved international dispute and the core issue in India-Pakistan relation, had taken a ”turn for the worse” since last July.