The suggestion by Pakistan occupied Kashmir Prime Minister Sikander Hayat to divide the state on the basis of Hindu majority areas and Muslim majority areas came in for sharp criticism from opposition parties of PoK.

Hayat on Monday said he supported the proposed Chenab formula under which Muslim majority areas would be given to Pakistan and the Hindu and Buddhist areas to India. He had also ruled out independence to Kashmir.

Hayat's suggestion amounted to abandoning UN resolutions on Kashmir, said Haji Javed Akhtar Chaudhry, the acting opposition leader of PoK legislative assembly.

Any solution, he added, will not 'bear fruit' unless the indigenous Kashmiri leadership is taken into account.

Charging the Pakistan government with not taking a principled stand on Kashmir, he accused Islamabad of capitulating in the face of US pressure.

Terming Hayat's statement as a setback to Pakistan's stand on Kashmir, General (retd) M H Insari charged that the Chenab formula was an American conspiracy.

He said the US has divided Iraq into three parts and now plans to partition Kashmir, which was the 'life vein' of Pakistan.

In India, Bhim Singh, president of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, described Hayat's proposal as dangerous to the integrity and security of the state.

"Mr Hayat Khan's proposition can create the fire and disaster of 1947 and is thus unacceptable to the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir who have been struggling for communal harmony and religious coexistence for the past five decades," he said in a press note issued on Tuesday.

He appealed to the All Party Hurriyat Conference and other political parties on both sides not to fall prey to the 'American plan' to divide the state on communal lines. He said the acceptance of such a plan would trigger off unrest in the Indian subcontinent.

With inputs from Onkar Singh in Delhi