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Accept J&K’s disputed nature, says Geelani
SRINAGAR: Dubbing the all-party delegation meeting as a meaningless photo session, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani refused to meet the MPs, saying they
SRINAGAR: Dubbing the all-party delegation meeting as a meaningless photo session, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani refused to meet the MPs, saying they have neither the mandate nor “the intention to resolve the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir”.
In two statements, the chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference asked India to accept the disputed nature of Jammu and Kashmir and start demilitarisation to pave the way for holding referendum in the state.
“Indian parliamentarians should have a special session of Parliament where they should accept the disputed nature of Jammu and Kashmir to pave the way for holding referendum in the state to settle this issue permanently, peacefully and democratically,” Geelani said in a statement on Friday.
Stating that it will be “another futile exercise considering 150 dialogues yielded no results”, he appealed to all stakeholders against meeting the delegation.
“If India accepts the disputed nature of Jammu and Kashmir and starts demilitarisation... we... will welcome every move forward in this regard,” he had said in his statement on Thursday, indicating that he was not against talks.
A 27-member all-party delegation led by home minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Arun Jaitley is slated to hold interactions with various sections in the state on September 4 in the wake of the violence in Kashmir that has left 72 people dead.
The demands have been part of the five-point pre-conditions he set for dialogues earlier too. Geelani had refused to enter into a dialogue with an all-party delegation during the 2010 unrest when over 100 youth were killed in action by security forces.
However, five members of the delegation had then taken an impromptu decision to meet separatists, which had helped bring down tempers in the Valley.
While moderate separatists Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chairman Yasin Mallik remain under arrest, Geelani has been confined to his Hyderpora residence in Srinagar for months.
Sources in the Hurriyat said the government has not sent any invitation to the separatist leadership for the talks.
PDP sources said even though government representatives are unlikely to meet the separatists, MPs who want to take the initiative on their own “won’t be stopped”.
Party sources said CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi “may meet separatists on their own”.
