J A M M U   &   K A S H M I R

Kashmir: Pandits too want say
NEW DELHI, Dec 11 — The Kashmiri Pandits United Forum has criticised the All-Party Hurriyat Conference for opposing the inclusion of Kashmiri Pandits in serious talks for finding solution to the Kashmir problem.

Fencing project to be taken up soon: Farooq
JAMMU Dec 11 — The Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, has said the project of fencing the 187-km-long international border in the Jammu sector will be taken up shortly.

Plea to finalise J&K Plan
JAMMU, Dec 11 — Mr Subash Shastri, president of the National Mazdoor Conference, has urged the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is also the Chairman of the Planning Commission to take the necessary steps for the finalisation of the Annual Plan of Jammu and Kashmir.

Hurriyat leaders may visit Pak
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Dec 11 — Leaders of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) are likely to be permitted to visit Pakistan. Highly placed sources said the Government of India was under pressure from the separatists groups trying to mediate between the rebels and the Centre, to allow the APHC leaders to visit Pakistan, which has been one of the main demands of the separatist conglomerate.

Sources said the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues too had been urged by men who matter in the USA to allow the APHC leaders to travel to Pakistan. According to these sources, the Prime Minister is inclined to grant the permission after the APHC Chairman, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, made it clear that the purpose of their visit to Pakistan was to establish contact with different “mujahid” groups whose support for the peace initiative announced by Mr Vajpayee, was essential to carry the process to its logical conclusion.

The APHC leaders had four days ago received hints that the Government of India may not grant permission to them to cross over to Pakistan. The Hurriyat leaders had decided to pack up in Delhi and return to Srinagar where the executive committee would meet to finalise its future strategy. Soon after the APHC team Prof Bhat, Mr Yasin Malik, and Maulvi Umar Farooq, who have been camping in Delhi, got indications that the Prime Minister was inclined to allow them to visit Pakistan the separatist leaders postponed their return to Srinagar.

Sources said the Prime Minister had been reportedly told to go soft with the APHC leaders because if they refused to accept the peace initiative the entire exercise of the announcement of unilateral ceasefire would prove meaningless. No doubt Mr Vajpayee had scored a political point over the separatists and Islamabad by declaring unilateral ceasefire. Any belligerent attitude on the part of the government may give an opportunity to the separatists to blame the Government of India for “scuttling the peace process.”

Kashmir experts in Delhi are of the opinion that the ceasefire announcement and the contradictory statements made by a senior Hurriyat Conference leader, Mr Abdul Gani Lone, in Pakistan have caused deep “fissures” in the APHC, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Maulvi Abbas Ansari are now on one side of the fence and Prof Bhat, Mr Yasin Malik and Maulvi Umar Farooq on the other side. At a recent seminar on human rights violations, organised by the APHC in Srinagar, the rift between the supporters of Mr Lone and Syed Ali Shah Geelani assumed serious dimensions.

These experts opine that the government should take advantage of it and allow the APHC leaders to visit Pakistan. And once they return to Delhi the government could give a serious thought to the demand for holding tripartite talks.

Since day one of the ceasefire announcement the separatists and militant groups have made a strong plea for tripartite talks. As days pass by indications are that Islamabad may not allow the separatists to accept bilateral talks.

Kashmir: Pandits too want say
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Dec 11 — The Kashmiri Pandits United Forum has criticised the All-Party Hurriyat Conference for opposing the inclusion of Kashmiri Pandits in serious talks for finding solution to the Kashmir problem.

Reacting to APHC chairman Mr Abdul Ghani Bhat’s interview to The Tribune that no serious talks could be held in a crowd, Dr K.L. Kachroo, president of the forum, said that the Hurriyat stand denoted conspiracy against the “hounded minority”.

Critical of the Centre’s handling of the Kashmir situation, Mr Kachroo, in a statement, claimed that the Kashmiri Pandits were unhappy over the “Union Government’s wooing and clandestine negotiations with the APHC.”

He said that while the Ayodhya issue had caused pandemonium and adjournments in Parliament, the issue of burning of more than 20,000 houses and desecration and encroachment of temples in the valley, some of them centuries old, had died an unsung death.

He said that Kashmiri Pandits would be forced to take to streets if their rightful claim to become part of any negotiations on the Kashmir issue was ignored.

Meanwhile, Panun Kashmir has also demanded inclusion in the talks to find a solution to the Kashmir problem. Expressing skepticism over the success of Ramzan ceasefire, it said that they be involved in any talks on the issue as they were the original inhabitants of the Valley and had suffered a great deal in the decade-old violence.

Fencing project to be taken up soon: Farooq
Tribune News Service

JAMMU Dec 11 — The Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, has said the project of fencing the 187-km-long international border in the Jammu sector will be taken up shortly.

Addressing a function in the border village of Arnia, the Chief Minister said the project had become imperative to check infiltration from Pakistan side. He said it was the result of infiltration of foreign mercenaries from across the border that Pakistan could sustain its proxy war against India in Jammu and Kashmir.

Dr Abdullah urged Pakistan to reciprocate India’s peace initiative in Kashmir by stopping cross-border terrorism. He said it would be in the interest of peace and normalcy in the subcontinent, if Islamabad stopped providing moral and material assistance to the militants.

He wanted Pakistan to realise that its proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir had achieved nothing except death and destruction. He said attempts were being made to divide the state. But he said he was confident that such a move would not succeed.

He equated the move to divide the state to the balkanisation of the Soviet Union. Those who were demanding a separate state for Jammu should realise that they were helping Pakistan. He said if a division took place, only two and a half of the six districts would form part of Jammu and the remaining three and a half districts would go to the Kashmir valley.

Plea to finalise J&K Plan
From Our Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 11 — Mr Subash Shastri, president of the National Mazdoor Conference, has urged the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is also the Chairman of the Planning Commission to take the necessary steps for the finalisation of the Annual Plan of Jammu and Kashmir.

In a communication to Mr Vajpayee, he expressed his concern and anguish over the non-finalisation of the Plan despite the fact that more than nine months had passed and no attention had been paid in this connection.

Mr Shastri said due to the non-finalisation of the Plan, not only had developmental activity come to a standstill, but also the employees working under the Plan had not got salaries.

He pointed out that as the state was facing a resource crunch, the Centre must come to its rescue.