Separatist leader justifies phone call with Pakistan foreign minister, says Hurriyat is the voice of Kashmiris, points out Vajpayee govt let them meet Musharraf.
New Delhi: Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Monday said the Hurriyat is a legitimate body that represents Kashmiris and their daily struggles, and thus it is imperative that it holds a dialogue with both India and Pakistan.
Justifying his telephonic conversation with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi last week, Farooq, the chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), said the main reason for the call was that being a key stakeholder in the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan has to reach out to separatists leaders to understand where things stand at present.
“Pakistan has its own position on Kashmir and India fully understands that,” Farooq told ThePrint over the phone from Srinagar where he is under house arrest.
“Pakistan is reaching out to us as it cannot reach out to India. They have their own issues to discuss. And this is nothing new, discussions have happened before also.”
Farooq further said that India cannot ignore the fact that Kashmir is half controlled by New Delhi and half by Islamabad.
“Kashmir is a political problem. This is not a Muslim Kashmir versus a Hindu India problem,” he said. “Pakistan was not made a party to this by us. So when we talk about peace in Kashmir, we have to speak to both India as well as Pakistan.
“Moreover, this was the first time that the Imran Khan government was reaching out to us. They wanted an assessment of the situation here,” he added, highlighting what transpired in the phone call that India has raised strong objections to.
In an unprecedented move, India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale called upon Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood late night at the Ministry of External Affairs last Wednesday and said that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and Pakistan has no business to interfere in India’s internal affairs. This also led to Pakistan summoning Indian envoy in Islamabad Ajay Bisaria the very next day.
Also read: Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq placed under house arrest ahead of Modi visit
Vajpayee govt let us meet Musharraf
The Hurriyat chief also alluded to the fact that during the previous NDA government, under late prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Hurriyat leaders were allowed by then deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani to visit Pakistan and meet then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Farooq said he fears that violence in Kashmir is going to reach “unprecedented levels” in the coming months if the government continues with its stance of not allowing the Hurriyat to engage with local people in the Valley.
“There is so much anger in the youth right now, I fear the cycle of violence is going to increase again. And this is going to be worse than what was witnessed when militancy reached its peak in the 1990s,” he said.
“And this is not about lack of education or lack of jobs, today people are taking up arms because the political space is shrinking.”
He emphasised that in today’s Kashmir, it is doctors, engineers, writers, scholars and academicians who are taking up arms and joining militant outfits. Farooq added that the anger is being accentuated by government actions such as the use of pellet guns during protest marches, indefinite imprisonment of Kashmiri youth and other such activities.
Farooq said under the Indian Army’s ‘Operation All-Out’, which began in 2017 and re-introduction of ‘Operation CASO’ (Cordon and Search Operation), young boys are getting indiscriminately killed just because they are on the street protesting.
“Most of the time these boys are disillusioned and they take part in protests out of anger and emotion. Most of the times they are unarmed but then they are killed by the security forces,” he said. “So people have lost all hope in dialogue and negotiations.”
He added that Jammu and Kashmir’s Constitutional safeguard is also under threat now.
“This is going to be more difficult for India if violence surges in the Valley once again. Now India is labelling us as terrorists. But New Delhi knows we can only negotiate with the people here,” he said.
“They do not want to talk to us, they do not want to talk to Pakistan, how is this going to help them in their mission of bringing peace in Kashmir?”