Seven members of the moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference general council have quit the conglomerate over differences with the top leadership on "restoration of the Hurriyat constitution".
This will be the first interaction between Jammu and Kashmir's moderate separatist group and the United Progressive Alliance dispensation as part of the dialogue process.
The Hizbul Mujahideen chief said he could not back their peace moves or any future Kashmir solution unless hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was taken on board, local media reported.
Lone, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Baramulla constituency, said one of the reasons he wants to go to Parliament is to strive and advocate for the same set of laws for the children of Kashmir and the rest of the country.
The Hurriyat's meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be its first with the UPA-led government since it came to power in May last year.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday met Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, who had also met Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi earlier. Pakistani officials said that during the 30-minute meeting, Farooq briefed Zardari about the All Parties Hurriyat Conference's perspective of the ground realities in Kashmir.Earlier, the Pakistan foreign minister met Farooq, ahead of his meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna on Monday.
Terming as "cowardly" the attack on Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said the Centre was committed to finding a solution to the Kashmir issue through quiet talks with every shade of political opinion in the state.
The Jammu and Kashmir government has made arrangements and undertaken tight security measures to ensure a hassle-free journey for separatist leaders going to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir through the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route.
The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference on Saturday rubbished as a "figment of imagination" the claims made by United States attorney Neil H Macbride that its chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was controlled by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. "The statement made by Macbride about the Mirwaiz is his figment of imagination and laughable," Hurriyat said in a statement.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil had said yesterday that the talks would be held 'within the four walls fo the Constitution'.
The two factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference on Tuesday reacted cautiously to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's proposal to demilitarise some regions of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control and grant them automomy.
This follows threats from militant outfits after the Hurriyat decided to talk to the Centre about the Kashmir issue.
National Conference President Omar Abdullah on Thursday termed as "unfortunate" the non-participation of Hurriyat Conference in the maiden Kashmiri leadership conference held in Pakistan.
The amalgam has deferred its meeting to discuss the Centre's invitation so that its members can watch the Peshawar match.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said Pakistan "spoiled the talks" by talking to Hurriyat leaders just ahead of foreign secretaries of the two nations were scheduled to meet in Islamabad last month.
The suspension was preempted to stop him flying to New York for an event where he was likely to have spoken against India, official sources said on Tuesday.
The separatist outfit wants to understand the Northern Ireland peace process and determine if it can be applied to the Kashmir problem.
"We have no objection if they [the Hurriyat leaders] want to travel to Delhi and hold talks with the Indian leadership," he said.
This is the first attempt by the separatists to reach out to the mainstream parties.
The Jammu and Kashmir police on Thursday arrested Masarat Alam Bhat, the spokesman of the joint co-ordination committee of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. Bhat had been evading the police since the past fortnight.Reportedly acting on a tip-off, the police arrested Alam from near Lal Chowk today evening.The police had raided several places in the last 15 days, in an attempt to arrest the second rung of separatist leaders, who played a key role in organising the protests.
'India should be more confident and let Pakistanis meet Hurriyat leaders. India's main concern is terrorism, and India should talk terrorism. If that means talking Kashmir, so be it. India can't answer terror with terror because we don't have terror factories. India can't answer terrorism with war because we both have nuclear weapons. That leaves talks as the only option,' says Shivam Vij.
As per the Simla Agreement, all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan should be treated as bilateral ones, while the Hurriyat has been insisting that it be made a party to talks to resolve the Kashmir problem.
Jamaat-e-Islami has removed the hardline leader in an attempt to moderate the extremist voices in the separatist amalgam.
The amalgam was on Saturday served a notice to vacate the premises in Malviya Nagar, Hurriyat sources said.
Pakistan has admitted that the timing of its high commissioner's meeting with the Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi ahead of the foreign secretary-level talks was "perhaps not totally right".
A visiting delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference on Sunday met leaders from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. The Hurriyat delegation, led by the group's chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, met the political leadership of PoK in Muzaffarabad.
Geelani also criticised porous borders, self-governance and other formulas being put forth by the Pakistan President, General Parvez Musharraf, to meet India midway in resolving the Kashmir dispute.
The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference decided on Sunday, not to meet the interlocutors appointed by the Centre for Jammu and Kashmir, saying such an exercise was aimed at keeping the issue lingering.
Hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani dropped plans to stage protest marches to army and other security forces camps here on September 21.
The hard-line faction of the Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani has issued a curious 11-day protest schedule asking people of Kashmir to carry out normal activities from dusk to dawn on strike days. As per the schedule, only two days -- September 19 and 22 -- have been exempted from strikes and protests by the Geelani-led Hurriyat faction, which is spearheading the ongoing agitation in the valley.
Hurriyat said Dulat's "primary goal was to defame the Kashmir freedom movement and spread lies about it".
Chairman of the moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umer Farooq Friday claimed that the initiative of the separatist amalgam for "trilateral talks" with India and Pakistan has been received well in Islamabad.
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat faction, was put under house arrest and prohibitory orders clamped in Srinagar on Saturday as separatists called a strike against the visit of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to Jammu.They said the step was taken as a precautionary measure to prevent the Hurriyat leader from visiting Shopian, 55 kms from Srinagar, to take part in a protest to mark the first anniversary of the alleged rape and murder of two young women.
Schools, shops, business establishments, private offices and banks remained closed in most pasts of the Valley due to the strike, officials said.
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