Chairman of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Saturday said he had not received any invitation from the Centre for interacting with the all-party delegation scheduled to arrive here on Monday.
“We have not received a formal invitation so far. We have only come to know about it through the media and it would not be prudent to react on media reports,” the Mirwaiz told PTI .
The delegation will visit Kashmir to interact with a cross section of the society, including separatist leaders, to find a solution to the present unrest in the Valley, which has left 99 persons dead and hundreds injured.
The decision to send the delegation was taken at an all-party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on Wednesday to assess the ground situation and submit a report to the Centre.
The Mirwaiz has been invited by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to attend a meeting on Jammu and Kashmir and a foreign ministers’ meeting in New York later this month.
The hard-line faction of Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani has decided not to meet the all-party delegation saying it did not have the mandate to hold talks beyond the Constitution of India.
“Since the mandate of the delegation is limited to talking within the framework of the Indian constitution, we have decided not to meet it,” a senior hard line Hurriyat leader said after the meeting of the Majlis-e-Shoura (Advisory Council) here.
He said the Hurriyat will participate in talks with the Centre only if it accepted Jammu and Kashmir as a dispute yet to be resolved.
In a statement issued after the meeting, Mr. Geelani asserted that wars and confrontations do not resolve disputes and the parties concerned have to come to the table even after war.
“But the realistic approach needed for holding successful talks is missing on part of Government of India,” the hard-line leader said.
He urged the people to hold banners and placards calling for demilitarisation of the state during the visit of the all-party delegation to present a true picture of the wishes and aspirations of the people here.
Mufti Sayeed meets Left leaders
Meanwhile, PDP patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed met Left leaders in New Delhi to discuss how the situation in the State could be defused.
Mr. Sayeed met CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday and CPI leaders A.B. Bardhan and D. Raja on Friday to exchange views on the turmoil in the State.
In these meetings, Mr. Sayeed is understood to have pinned hopes on the upcoming visit of an all-party delegation to the State on Monday to seek views of cross-section of people there.
He has suggested that the delegation should meet the families of victims of police firing.
Representatives of the Left parties, including CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury and CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta, will be part of the all-party delegation that will visit Kashmir and Jammu for two days.
