A calm and courteous city centre greeted Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi when he made a surprise visit to the commercial hub of Srinagar on Wednesday.

It was the first visit by any central minister to the city centre in years. The last time a key central minister — then home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde — visited Lal Chowk was in 2012.

Naqvi arrived at the city’s flea market amid heavy security, shaking hands and freely speaking with a few vendors. The visit lasted only a five minutes but the minister met with no hostility and the event passed off peacefully.

Official sources said the Union minister chose the flea market for his visit on the suggestion of a key minister in the previous Mehbooba Mufti government. The former minister is now part of the negotiations with the Centre and has given up his Opposition to article 370 scrapping.

“Some vendors are close to the politician and they had promised the administration that there will be no trouble,” a source said.

The minister was accompanied by Farooq Khan, adviser to the Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant-governor, and local BJP leaders Sofi Yousuf and Altaf Thakur.

“We were surprised by the visit as we had no information about it. Some of us did shake hands with them but others were busy with their work,” a vendor said.

The minority affairs ministers is part of an outreach by 36 ministers in the Narendra Modi government.

No shutdown is greeting the visiting dignitaries in the Valley this time, apparently because separatists, who issue such calls, are mostly in jail.