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Pro-Independence Group Backs India's Kashmir Truce
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan controlled Kashmir, Feb 27 (News Agencies) - An alliance of pro-independence Kashmiri groups Tuesday urged Muslim groups to cease their operations against Indian troops in Kashmir.
"We welcome the ceasefire on [the] part of India because it has provided relief to the people of the border areas, and also ask the mujahideen groups to accept it," said Shaukat Maqbool Butt, a leader of the All Parties National Alliance (APNA).
APNA is made up of more than a dozen small groups, based in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan, the northern part of Kashmir currently under the direct administrative control of Pakistan.
It advocates complete independence of Kashmir from both New Delhi and Islamabad.
"They [the mujahideen] should not only accept it but also reciprocate in the same manner," said Butt, whose National Liberation Front (NLF) is a key APNA component.
"Kashmir is not a land of Muslims only, but Hindus, Buddhists and other minorities also live in it. Our struggle may suffer if we will dub it as Islamic movement," he told reporters here, three days after his release from a Pakistani prison.
Butt, son of Kashmiri leader Maqbool Butt, was among 14 alliance activists arrested by Islamabad police on February 12th for protesting against the ban on a Gilgit-based weekly.
India announced its unilateral ceasefire in November and extended it last week for another three months. Muslim groups refused to cease their operations, terming the truce a propaganda ploy.
"Instead of terming the ceasefire a mockery, deception and what not, we should put India to test," Butt said.
"Unless you are involved in the process of dialogue, you cannot decree on fairness or otherwise of the opposite side," he added.
Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, has caused two wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.
More than 34,000 people have died in a conflict against Indian rule Kashmir.
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