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Third Front Mooted in Kashmir, Hurriyat Conference in Trouble
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| "Mandela
of Kashmir," Shabbir Shah
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By
IOL
South Asia
Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, June 27 (IslamOnline) - Signals from the Kashmir Valley and
reports in the national capital indicate that Hurriyat Conference is
likely to be folded up to make way for another "moderate"
conglomerate ready to play ball with New Delhi.
Legislative
assembly elections in the state are due in October. This time, the
Center is firm on holding elections and has even agreed to allow
foreign observers, if necessary.
Indian
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who visited the state a month
ago, is to pay another visit next month.
Kashmir
has become a constant headache and the government is contemplating a
viable solution to the vexed issue. Also, it wants to show the world
that the problem can be solved locally, without a third party
intervention. The Center, as a corollary to its security policy, is
trying to ensure fair polls in the state. The unfair and rigged polls
of 1987 led to the current militancy.
If
recent developments in the Valley are any indication, it is more or
less clear now that All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is heading
for troubled times. Already, the very existence of Hurriyat Conference
has come under a cloud with the arrest of two members of its executive
council, Mohammed Yasin Malik, JKLF chief, for Foreign Exchange
Regulation Act (FERA) and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Jamaat-e-Islami
leader, under Public Safety Act (PSA) and the unlikely charge of
assassination of senior leader Abdul Ghani Lone on May 21.
Hardly
any powerful Hurriyat leader is left to challenge the Center or state
leadership. The situation being fluid for the Hurriyat Conference, the
Center has swiftly swung into action and is trying to regain at least
some of the lost ground in the Valley. The impression in the Valley is
that the Center would not hesitate to hobble the APHC by framing up
its senior leaders in concocted cases. It is also not averse to once
again propping up some unpopular regime as has been the case so far.
Sources
in the Valley point out that the ground is being prepared for the
Prime Minister’s visit to the Valley sometime next month, his second
in as many months. Vajpayee is expected to announce a political
package for Kashmiris which he couldn’t do during his last trip to
the Valley due to the India-Pakistan standoff and Abdul Ghani Lone’s
assassination.
According
to reports here, a six-member central home ministry team, led by
special secretary Ashok Bhandari, is visiting the state at present
ahead of Vajpayee’s proposed visit.
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| Body
of Hizbul Mujahidin commander Masoud during burial
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The
central team’s visit comes close on the heels of Amarjit Singh
Dullat, who is in charge of
Kashmir
affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Dullat is a former
chief of Research and Analyses Wing (RAW),
India
's equivalent of CIA. His visit is widely considered a part of the
strategy to initiate Track-II diplomacy with the Kashmiri opposition.
Dullat
reportedly held wide-ranging consultations with leaders of separatist
outfits to convince them to take part in the legislative assembly
polls. Dullat is also believed to have approached pro-Pakistan
separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and asked for his cooperation
to the Center in solving the
Kashmir
problem, a request Geelani turned down. Observers say that only after
his outright refusal that Geelani was arrested June 9 under PSA while
Dullat was still camping in the Valley.
With
the two powerful voices of Hurriyat Conference behind bars and
effectively silenced, the Center would now find it easy to manage the
Kashmir
affairs by roping in "moderate" separatist leaders and
effecting a semblance of normalcy in the state.
Mohammed
Yasin Malik, chief of the
Jammu and Kashmir
Liberation Front, was the brain behind the Hurriyat Election
Commission and Syed Ali Shah Geelani had openly criticized Mirwaiz
Umar Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone for their
Dubai
meeting last month with the Kashmir Committee chairman from
Pakistan-administered
Kashmir
, Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan, a former prime minister of Azad Kashmir.
Both Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone were considered to be
"moderate" separatist leaders.
Kashmir
analysts say that given their earlier track record, Malik and Geelani
were considered by
New Delhi
to be the main obstacles to the restoration of peace in the Valley and
could have created many hurdles in the forthcoming legislative
assembly elections. Geelani played a major role in anti-poll rallies
and successfully persuaded people to boycott the 1996 assembly
elections and the 1998 parliamentary elections.
Now
that Hurriyat Conference has been considerably weakened, the Center
taking advantage of the current situation is trying to form a front
comprising some "acceptable" separatist leaders such as
Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Fazal Haque Qureishi and Azam Inqualibi. Though,
"moderate" separatists may have lost their voice with the
assassination of Abdul Ghani Lone, Geelani’s arrest is propelling
those who keen, yet shy away from participating in the polls.
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| Body
of militant killed by the security forces
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The
Center’s keenness may be gauged from the fact that Dullat is
understood to have assured Hurriyat leaders of success in several
constituencies and even went to the extent of offering the dissolution
of the present legislative assembly, provided they agreed to contest
the polls.
In
keeping with the Center’s plan, Vajpayee, during his forthcoming
visit to the state, would possibly meet moderate separatist leaders
like Shabbir Shah to encourage them to participate in the October
polls. The Prime Minister is also expected to send across the message
that the Center is more than willing to take a fresh look at the
Kashmir
problem.
So
far, KC Pant and Wajahat Habibullah, both Center’s
Kashmir
interlocutors, have proven to be ineffective or have failed to make
the desired headway. Even former Law Minister Ram Jethmalani was in
Srinagar
for a day-and-half recently as an emissary of the central government.
Jethmalani met separatist leader Shabbir Shah as well as his
supporters in the Hurriyat Conference.
Understandably,
it is crucial for the government that a political process is revived
in the state rather soon. And, to make its gameplan successful,
India
has to fulfill its two objectives. Firstly to reduce the tension and
stop cross-border infiltration – an objective achieved through the
Armitage mission.
The
second objective is to silence the dissenting voice from amongst the
separatist ranks. This was successfully done with the arrest of two
prominent leaders, Yasin Malik and Syed Ali Geelani. In the run-up to
the October polls, more separatist leaders may be arrested so that the
election process is not obstructed.
Arguably,
now that the PMO has once again become the node of Kashmir initiative,
New Delhi's message for the Hurriyat Conference leaders is simple:
cooperate with the Center, participate in (or support) the elections
or perish. The
Kashmir
ball is now with the moderate separatist leaders. Whether they play
ball with the Center or prefer to lie low remains to be seen.
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