The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, December 28, 2000,
Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I N N E W S

APHC seeks visas for Pak
Tribune News Service & agencies

NEW DELHI, Dec 27 — Leaders of All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) have urged the Centre to issue travel documents to them immediately so that they can prepare for a visit to Pakistan for parleys with the militant groups and the government leaders there.

At least six leaders have submitted their papers to the government with a request that their cases be expedited, Hurriyat sources said here.

It is not known whether the Hurriyat made a written request for issuance of passports or verbally conveyed their plea to the government.

The Hurriyat executive will meet on January 2 in Srinagar to discuss the situation in the valley and finalise their strategy for talks with the Pakistani and militant leaders if they were given allowed to proceed to Islamabad.

The composition of the delegation would also be decided at the meeting.

Except for Moulvi Omer Farooq, former chairman of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, no other Hurriyat leaders possesses passports.

Mr Abdul Gani Lone was recently issued country-specific passport valid for three months.

Home Minister L.K. Advani said the government would soon decide on the issue of allowing the Hurriyat leaders to visit Pakistan.

Moulvi Abbas Ansari, whose passport was impounded by the government sometime back, is also reported to have sought permission to go to Pakistan. He had requested that his travel documents be restored.

Four members of the APHC executive — Syed Ali Shah Gilani, Mohammed Yasin Malik, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat and Sheikh Abdul Aziz — do not have any travel document.

Infact Moulvi Omer Farooq and Moulvi Abbas Ansari were allowed by the government to go to Qatar to participate in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (IOC) summit, which was held there in November.

The decision to send the Hurriyat delegation to Pakistan on January 15 was taken at an executive meeting held in Srinagar recently. The purpose of sending the delegation was to interact with different sections of society and militant leaders there to find a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue.

Meanwhile, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference has decided to send a three-member team led by its chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat to Pakistan ostensibly to talk to militant groups, which has created conducive conditions for talks with different groups and also for the resumption of an Indo-Pak dialogue in near future.

While the APHC leadership has agreed on Professor Bhat and the JKLF leader, Mr Yasin Malik, there is still a debate on the choice for the third member of the team. The tussle is between a former Hurriyat chairman, Moulvi Umar Farooq and the People’s Conference leader, Mr A.G. Lone, the sources said, adding that the team would be in Pakistan around the middle of the next month.

The government has already sent a word to the Hurriyat leadership about its intention to grant all necessary permissions to them for going to Pakistan.

But even as the Hurriyat team starts packing its bags for a trip to Pakistan, there is little hope among the officials, policy planners and decision makers here about any positive outcome of the three-member team’s mission.

While Islamabad, off late, has made some positive moves, like withdrawal of troops from the border and reduction in firing along the Line of Control (LoC), but the moves are largely aimed to counter New Delhi’s peace moves. There has been no change in Pakistan’s basic strategy.

Still there are no firm indications from Pakistan that it intends to restrain cross-border terrorism. Islamabad’s aid and support to militant outfits and terrorist organisations is continuing unabated, the sources said.

Having full knowledge of Pakistan’s strategy and designs, the government was still permitting the Hurriyat team to go to Pakistan as it wanted the moderate Hurriyat leadership to come to terms with the ground realities, the sources said, adding that ultimately the APHC would also be disillusioned.

One possible indication of the possible outcome of the coming peace mission of the APHC was available last week when the Pakistan-based United Jehad Council, which coordinates the activities of all militant outfits, said there was no question of responding to India’s ceasefire offer and operations in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India would be intensified.

The positive noises about India’s ceasefire offer in Pakistan and media stories about a meeting between the Amir-e-Jammat G.M. Butt and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in Saudi Arabia were indeed more for international consumption, the observers pointed out, saying that Islamabad had been under tremendous global pressure to take a positive stand on New Delhi’s initiative.

Govt may review truce offer: BJP

NEW DELHI, Dec 27 (UNI) — The BJP today said the government might be compelled to review its stand on ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir if Pakistan did not take steps to control ‘nefarious activities’ of Lashkar-e-Toiba in India.

Talking to newspersons here, BJP Vice-President K. Jana Krishnamurthy said continuing violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the recent attack at Red Fort in Delhi by the Pak-based organisations and the threat to attack the Prime Minister’s Office was not just a challenge to the authority of India, but to its sponsors — Pakistan and the world community should take note of these threats. If Islamabad wants any meaningful negotiations with New Delhi, it should control the activities of the Lashkar first, he said.

He said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had ‘confirmed’ the hand of Pakistan behind the violence and the announcement of unilateral ceasefire could not be construed as ‘one sided affair’. One can withstand pin-pricks, but it would have its own repercussions, he said. The Indian soldiers and authorities were doing their best to ward off such problems.

On China, Mr Krishnamurthy did not rule out talks on border dispute when Mr Li Peng, former Chinese Prime Minister and Chairman of National Peoples’ Congress, would be visiting India on January 10. Chinese Prime Minister would visit India in the first half of 2001, he said. President K.R. Narayanan had visited China two months ago.

Ridiculing the Congress for floating ‘rumours’ about possibility of mid-term poll, the BJP Vice-President said the party would have to wait until 2004 to realise its dreams. Its attempts to draw a wedge among the NDA allies through their motion in Lok Sabha bore no result and alliance had remained firm, he said.