Restrictions in Srinagar to prevent Eidgah march
Srinagar, May 21 : In occupied Kashmir, the authorities have placed the All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and other Hurriyet leaders under house arrest to prevent them from leading a rally at Mazar-e-Shuhada in Eidgah area of Srinagar, today.
The APHC had announced to hold the rally to commemorate the martyrdom anniversaries of prominent liberation leaders, Mirwaiz Moulvi Muhammad Farooq and Khawaja Abdul Ghani Lone. It had also planned to lay foundation stone of the ‘Martyrs’ Wall’ at the Mazar-e-Shuhada.
Besides the APHC Chairman, those who put under house arrest included Maulana Abbas Ansari, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Bilal Ghani Lone, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Mukhtar Ahmed Waza, Zafar Akbar Butt, Masroor Abbas and Yasmeen Raja. Indian police also arrested APHC leader Mohammad Yousuf Naqash from his residence and shifted him to Safa Kadal police station in Srinagar.
Meanwhile, the occupation authorities have imposed strict restrictions in most parts of the Srinagar city to prevent people from taking out the rally. They have also sealed all roads leading to the Eidgah.
It was on 21st May in 1990 when unidentified gunmen killed Mirwaiz Moulvi Muhammad Farooq at his residence in Srinagar. More than 60 mourners were later martyred in Hawal area of the city when Indian troops fired upon his funeral procession.
On the same day, in 2002, Khawaja Abdul Ghani Lone, was assassinated by unknown assailants when he was returning from Eidgah after addressing a public gathering.
Muhammad Jamil
There are hundreds and thousands of cables leaked by WikiLeaks, but one may not find any cable mentioning that the ‘text’ of the ‘deal’ on Kashmir was ready, just to be signed by India and Pakistan.
According to a report published The Nation, the leaked cables said that Britain’s Labour government regarded Pakistan’s Army Chief as a major “obstacle” to an India-Pakistan “deal” on Kashmir. Those who have had the experience of working in diplomatic missions know that the internal reporting between the embassy and the government is frank and candid. However, its veracity depends on the credibility of the diplomat and of those who provide the information. Sometimes diplomats throw hints to the media if the US State Department does not respond to their memos either due to preoccupation with some important matters, or it does not consider the information worthwhile to dwell upon. Hence, they resort to leaks. Anyhow, it is true that former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri had more than once stated that India and Pakistan had made substantial progress on resolving the Kashmir dispute, but he never talked about any ‘text’.
Even Shah Mehmood Qureshi has denied seeing any document in the Foreign Office revealing that India and Pakistan were on the same page on the issue. The fact of the matter is that it is due to India’s intransigence that no progress could be made to resolve any of the major issues between the two countries, including Kashmir. However, once again the talks have resumed.
The talks between the Home Secretaries of India and Pakistan were held in New Delhi on March 28 and 29, 2011. The Indian delegation was led by Shri Gopal K. Pillai, while the Pakistani delegation was headed by Qamar Zaman Chaudhry. The meeting was held in pursuance of the decision taken in Thimphu, Bhutan, in February 2011, by the two governments to resume the dialogue process. However, it is yet to be seen as to whether India would show flexibility on the core issues like Kashmir, Siachen, water, Sir Creek and find their solutions.
Anyway, a joint statement was issued which mainly addressed the problems like information-sharing about terrorist threats and commitment to fight , and exchange of information on the ongoing trial and investigation on the Mumbai terror attacks. India provided information on the Samjhota Express blast investigation. At the same time, both sides noted and welcomed the release of prisoners and fishermen by each other, since the last round of talks. Both sides agreed that the problems of inadvertent crossers should be viewed sympathetically. Both sides shared the concern of the growing menace of narcotics/drugs and agreed that cooperation between the NCB of India and the ANF of Pakistan should be enhanced to ensure an effective control on drug trafficking. It was decided that India’s CBI and Pakistan’s FIA will schedule a meeting to work out the technical details of moving forward on the issues related to human trafficking, counterfeit currency, cyber crimes and Red Corner Notices (RCNs). It is hoped that other issues would be discussed in the Foreign Secretary level talks – the dates for which have yet to be decided.
During the last 62 years, Pakistan and India had many rounds of talks, including the composite dialogue that started in 2004, and stalled after the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008. In the past, India had always insisted that before discussing the Kashmir dispute, other issues of lesser importance should be discussed and resolved. However, whenever the time for discussing Kashmir came, New Delhi on one pretext or the other ended the dialogue.
Having said that, the resumption of the talks between New Delhi and Islamabad is a welcome move, but it should be kept in mind that without resolving the Kashmir dispute, genuine peace in the South Asian region cannot be achieved. In fact, the core issue between the two countries need to be sorted out, first for a normalisation to occur in their relationship. However, it is unfortunate that the four rounds of the stalled composite dialogue covering the whole gamut of disputes, keeping the two countries at loggerheads, had passed without any remarkable progress on any of the important issues. We will not delve into the reasons for India’s decision to resume the talks, but will hope that those who took the initiative would create a climate conducive to the resolution of the issues bedevilling the relations between India and Pakistan.
Of course, the credit for having offered an olive branch to Pakistan in 2004 goes to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But after the elections when the Congress came into power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also underscored the need to resolve the festering issues. He, however, had simultaneously foreclosed the possibility of resolution by saying that there would not be any change of borders between the two countries.
Later, both sides agreed that matters of trade, communication contacts, including Srinagar-Muzaffarabad, Khokharapar-Monabao, Siachen, Sir Creek and other issues would form part of the composite dialogue. So, Pakistan and India had held talks on communication links, economic and trade cooperation and upgrading military hotline. Some of the conventional confidence building measures between the two nations were mere affirmation of what was already in place, like holding ceasefire on the Line of Control and Siachen. When the second round of confidence building measures had ended in the last week of April 2006, India had rejected Pakistan’s proposal to demilitarise Kashmir. The third and fourth rounds had also ended without any substantive progress. Since the war between the two nuclear states is not an option, India and Pakistan must resolve the core issues for permanent and durable peace in the region.
