Hurriyat ready for meeting

By Shujaat Bukhari

NEW DELHI, JULY 13. With the arrival of a senior executive member, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone, today, all six members of the All- Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) executive council are here to meet the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, at a tea party hosted by the Pakistan High Commissioner tomorrow.

Mr. Lone, who had been placed under house arrest along with Mr. Shabir Shah, another Hurriyat leader, was allowed to take a flight for New Delhi this afternoon. He was the only executive member who was in Srinagar. Even as rumours were agog that Government planned to stop the Hurriyat leaders from attending the party, police officials in Srinagar said Mr. Lone and others had been put under house arrest to prevent them from visiting the martyr's graveyard in downtown Srinagar.

People from different walks of life including the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, and his Cabinet colleagues paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives on July 13, 1931 while fighting the Dogra rule.

Mr. Lone could not address a scheduled press conference and the Hurriyat spokesman said it had been cancelled. He apparently had to counter the police claim implicating three party leaders in the Charar-e-Sharief blast of June 8.

Mr. Lone said police action was unjustified as ``we had to pay respects to those who laid the foundation for a struggle to free the State and we are on the path of accomplishing the same.'' Asked whether they had apprehensions about their meeting with Gen. Musharraf, Mr. Lone said, ``nothing can be said.''

The six executive members of the Hurriyat - Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat (chairman), Mr. Ali Shah Geelani, Mr. Abdul Ghani Lone, Moulvi Abbas Ansari, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Sheikh Abdul Aziz - have been invited for the reception. The seventh member, Mr. Yaseen Malik, whose Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front decided to boycott the tea party, is away in London. However, nothing is known about Gen. Musharraf having a separate meeting with the Hurriyat leaders. But sources close to the Hurriyat leaders said Gen. Musharraf and his Foreign Minister may have a separate meeting with the APHC leaders. ``They are not going to make it official to avoid criticism from New Delhi but the meeting of far-reaching impact on the summit will take place,'' the sources said. Normal life in Kashmir was thrown out of gear as a near- complete strike was observed in response to a call by Hurriyat Conference to pay homage to the martyrs.

Migrants' plea

The Kashmiri Migrants' Welfare Association has urged the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, to take up with Gen. Musharraf the total violation of human rights of people displaced by militancy in the Kashmir Valley.

A press release from the Association said, ``we understand the earnest desire of Gen. Musharraf to visit his birth place in Delhi and believe that at least now he will feel our pain and anguish of displacement.'' Mr. Vajpayee should discuss the plight of millions of displaced Sikhs, Gujjars, Buddhists and Hindus as also the problems of people in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir, it added.

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