Jammu, March 22
Has Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chief of the Tehrik Hurriyat Conference, staged a comeback in his relations with the Pakistani establishment? This question assumed significance after Pakistan Television (PTV) started giving coverage to Mr Geelani’s activities in the Kashmir valley. His statements, speeches utterances at public rallies and other activities were given sufficient coverage in news bulletins telecast by the PTV in recent days.

Prior to APHC leaders’ visit to Pakistan last year and normalisation of relations between Gen. Pervez Musharraf and leaders of the APHC headed by Maulvi Umar Farooq Mr Geelani used to get sufficient coverage of his activities on the PTV. Since Mr Geelani used to be considered to head the pro-Pakistan lobby in Kashmir PTV and the print media in Pakistan missed no opportunity in giving full coverage to his activities. Those days activities of the APHC leaders either did not find space in the news of Pakistani electronic and print media or got insignificant space.

The scene changed after Gen Musharraf granted a sort of recognition to the APHC leaders for being the representatives of people of Kashmir. Since then the PTV and the print media in Pakistan started giving casual coverage to Mr Geelani’s a activities. And political observers in Jammu and Kashmir were quick in saying that Islamabad had begun placing all its eggs in the APHC basket. When Mr Geelani resorted to Gen Musharraf bashing for his (Musharraf’s) policy on Kashmir he was nearly ignored by the print and electronic media in Pakistan.

However, in the recent days Mr Geelani is back on the centrestage of PTV. Though it gives coverage to the activities of the APHC leaders, it devotes more space and time to Mr Geelani’s activities.

PTV, at the same time, does not refer to Mr Geelani as chairman of the Tehrik Hurriyat Conference but describes him as an elderly (Buzurg) Kashmiri leader.

Reports from across the border said that the Pakistani establishment had undergone slight change in attitude towards Mr Geelani as it has found him to be the only separatist leader consistency in stand on the Kashmir issue.

What seems to have prompted Islamabad to be appreciative of Syed Ali Shah Geelani was that he “begged” neither a meeting with Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, nor hesitated in rejecting an invitation to the round-table conference convened by Mr Manmohan Singh in Delhi on February 25.

According to these reports, Islamabad was reviving patronage to Mr Geelani so that APHC leaders did not feel encouraged in taking decisions on a dialogue with the Government of India and on their participation in the second roundtable conference being held in Srinagar in May without taking notes from Islamabad.

Right from the rise of militancy in Kashmir valley in 1989 Pakistani agencies have not banked on one or a couple of organisations. Their patronage continued to shift from one outfit to the other.

This strategy was part of the Islamabad plan to avoid banking on one organisation or the other fearing that the leaders and activists of those outfits or organisations could be purchased or influenced by Delhi. This was the reason that the number of militant outfits decreased from 150 in 1990-92 to six at present.

Jammu, March 22
Mr Mangat Ram Sharma, Transport Minister, today assured the Assembly that the Congress-led coalition government was committed to implementing the recommendations of the Wazir Commission and set up finance and delimitation commissions in the state.

Mr Sharma stated this in response to the noisy protest by Mr Jugal Kishore (BJP) who said that confusion had been created with the treasury benches giving conflicting statements on the issue.

He said while the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Muzaffar Hussain Baig, had a few days ago told the Assembly that the recommendations of the Wazir Commission would be implemented, the Chief Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, had confused the situation by announcing that another commission would be set up for this purpose.

Mr Sharma said it was provided in the common minimum programme of the coalition that not only the recommendations of the Wazir Commission that proposed new districts of Kishtwar, Samba and Reasi would be implemented, but a delimitation commission and a finance commission would also be established to remove the complaints of regional imbalances.

He said a new commission would be set up to suggest creation of more districts in the state. He said the demand for granting district status to Bandipura in the Kashmir valley was also being raised.

There were arguments between the BJP member and certain legislators of the PDP in the House.

Mr Abdul Rahim Rather (NC) said implementation of the recommendations of the Wazir Commission was a sensitive issue and the government should come out with an assurance whenever the matter was raised in the House. He said a debate should be held in the House on the issue.

Meanwhile, the NC and PDP members disrupted the proceedings during question hour by raising the issue of the recent killing of four Kashmiri boys in Gujarat by the police in an "encounter".

They said that the boys were innocent and were dubbed as terrorists after their custodial deaths. Mr Mangat Ram Sharma said that the Chief Minister would get in touch with the Gujarat government and put the facts before the House.

Srinagar, March 22
The defence authorities in Kashmir have decided to vacate all government buildings occupied by the troops, a Defence Ministry spokesman said here today. He said the process of vacating the buildings by the troops had started.

The spokesman said the buildings, which remained vacant, were occupied by the troops in the past to thwart any attempt by the militants to damage them. Now the things had changed and a process had been started to hand over the buildings to the government for the use of public, he said.

He said almost all the buildings which were being used by the Education Department, schools, orphanages and madrasas were now handed over back to the civil administration. — UNI