Mirwaiz asks PM to announce dialogue with Hurriyat, Pak during Valley visit

‘Delhi’s secret talks refrain is unfounded’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, May 21: Chairman of the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, today asserted that there was absolutely no substance in the union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s refrain of a secret process of talks with Kashmir’s separatist leadership. Repeating demilitarization, revocation of “draconian laws” and declaration of “complete political package” as the key conditions, Mirwaiz urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to announce a fresh dialogue process with Hurriyat Conference and Pakistan during his forthcoming visit to Kashmir valley.

In his key address on occasion of the death anniversary of two Kashmiri leaders, Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone, on the Eidgah Grounds today Mirwaiz Umar Farooq claimed that no Kashmiri separatist leader was involved in any process of secret dialogue with the Government of India. “This bogey of secret dialogue is completely baseless”, he told a gathering of around 16,000 people while paying tributes to his father Mirwaiz Farooq who had been gunned down by militants on May 21, 1990, and the Peoples Conference founder-chairman, Abdul Gani Lone, who was shot dead by militants at the Mirwaiz remembrance rally on Eidgah Grounds on May 21, 2002.

Junior Mirwaiz urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to announce a fresh, meaningful dialogue process with Hurriyat and Pakistan during his forthcoming visit to Kashmir valley. Prime Minister would be reportedly visiting the Valley in June. Mirwaiz, nevertheless, repeated withdrawal of troops, revocation of “draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act” and announcement of “a complete political package” as the Hurriyat’s key conditions to participation in a dialogue process with New Delhi. He lamented that Hurriyat had time and again submitted a host of proposals to New Delhi with regard to resolution of the Kashmir crisis but, according to him, Government of India had “never budged an inch from its rigid stand”.

Mirwaiz described his slain father and founder of Awami Action Committee, Maulvi Mohammad Farooq, as a “stanch freedom fighter” and claimed that winning Kashmir’s freedom from India was his goal. He called the Hurriyat as representative of over one hundred thousands martyrs who, according to him, had laid down their life for Kashmir’s separation from India and asserted that the blood spilled for the “noble cause of Azadi” would never go waste. Laying emphasis on unity, Mirwaiz warned his fellow separatist leaders against causing split after split of their organizations and alliances. According to him, Kashmiris would achieve nothing as long as there was a war of one-upmanship in the Valley’s separatist fold.

Head of so-called moderate faction of the Hurriyat, Mirwaiz lashed out on the mainstream opposition Peoples Democratic Party, without mentioning its name, over highlighting the issue of human rights abuse by the Indian security forces in Jammu & Kashmir. He alleged that the mainstream opposition party had been shedding crocodile tears “only to befool the Kashmiris”. “But the people of Kashmir are mature enough to understand the difference between their real leaders and the crying mummies”, Mirwaiz asserted. He complained that Omar Abdullah’s government had not kept its world of not disrupting today’s Hurriyat rally. Notwithstanding a rejoinder from the official spokesman, Mirwaiz alleged that the government had prevented a large number of his followers from participating in the rally.

On its return, some youth in the rally set on fire a paramilitary CRPF bunker at Kawdara, on Nallah Maar Road and attempted to enter and attack the armed soldiers. They observed restraint and did not retaliate. A Police party quickly rushed to the spot and dispersed the rioters with tearsmoke, baton charge and firing in the air. Nobody was reportedly injured.

Earlier, Mirwaiz was carried to Eidgah Grounds in a rally in which people shouted pro-Azadi slogans. Mirwaiz set out from Jamia Masjid after delivering his weekly sermon and participating in the mass Friday prayers. Senior leaders of the “moderate” Hurriyat, namely Bilal Gani Lone, Professor Abdul Gani Bhat and Maulvi Abbas Ansari were conspicuously absent even as Ansari was represented by his son.

END