"We will try to bring them back. They are part of us. We are incomplete without them," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head of the moderate faction of the main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

Nearly 200,000 Kashmiri Hindus, also known as Pandits, fled their homes in Kashmir after Muslim militants in 1989 launched an insurgency against Indian rule in which tens of thousands have died.

Most are living in shanty tenements in the state's southern Hindu-dominated region of Jammu. Some fled the state altogether for other parts of India.

Hindus have been demanding a separate homeland be carved out for them in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. The government and the separatists oppose the idea.

Unidentified gunmen killed 24 Hindus in the southern Kashmir village of Nadimarg in March 2003, setting back the government's efforts to resettle Hindus in Kashmir.

"All-out efforts will be made to ensure their return," Farooq told reporters in the summer capital Srinagar, adding that he would visit Pandits in their camps in a bid to persuade them to return home.

Farooq and eight other moderate separatists last week returned from Pakistan and its portion of Kashmir after a two-week visit during which they held talks with officials.