Hurriyat Conference leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Bilal Lone were on Thursday manhandled allegedly by a group of Kashmiri Pandit activists who stormed a seminar being attended by them in Chandigarh.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, has denied news reports that appeared in a leading national paper saying that he did not want travel documents to be issued to rival APHC group chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani when an AHPC delegation visited Pakistan in 2005.
Moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Friday confirmed that Dileep Padgaonkar, veteran journalist and one of the interlocutors appointed by the Centre for Kashmir, had called him for a meeting. "Dileep Padgaonkar called me on Thursday and requested a meeting, which I declined. I told Padgaonkar that it was our stand not to meet them as long as our demands are not met," the Mirwaiz said.
The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief, who was shifted to Tihar jail under police protection, was taken into preventive custody in February by the Jammu and Kashmir police and shifted to Jammu's Kot Balwal jail.
Curfew-like-restrictions were imposed on Tuesday in Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and other towns to scuttle the separatist called marches.
India on Friday made it clear to Pakistan that it should not go ahead with the meeting of its NSA Sartaz Aziz with Hurriyat representatives in New Delhi when he comes to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, saying it will not be "appropriate".
The Srinagar police detained chairman of the moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq along with other senior leaders of the group in Srinagar on Thursday.
Moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Thursday claimed that human rights were being violated in Jammu and Kashmir for the last 20 years.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, has denied newspaper reports that he met Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt General Shuja Pasha during his Europe visit.
All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has ruled out resumption of talks with the Centre, saying that "genocide of Kashmiris and dialogue can't go together".
Moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq faced protests from members of BJP's student wing who hurled eggs at his vehicle in Kolkata and diplayed banners, prompting police to arrest 25 of them, three days after he was heckled by right-wing activists in Chandigarh.
A criminal complaint was on Saturday filed in a court in Chandigarh, accusing Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Bilal Lone of waging a war against the country by making 'seditious' statements. The complaint was filed by a non-governmental organisation in the court of Judicial Magistrate Paramjit Kaur who fixed December 1 as the date for hearing evidence in the case.
Moderate separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Friday categorically denied that "any quiet dialogue was going on between them and the Centre".
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.
Ahead of the meeting with his Indian counterpart, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday said New Delhi should engage itself in talks to resolve the Kashmir issue."We hope New Delhi will realise the ground reality and world trends which essentially include negotiations and talks on resolving outstanding issues," he said. Qureshi was addressing a press conference after his meeting with All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
All Party Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has claimed that he was placed under house arrest minutes after his meeting with the all-party delegation at his residence in downtown Srinagar.
On a mission to understand the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the all party delegation on Monday began its two-day exercise with Home Minister P Chidambaram promising the people of the state that their future, honour and dignity are secure as part of India.
Demonstrators took to the streets to protest against what they called the rigged election in which Pakistan ruling party is said to be winning, and erected barricades to block the movement, Dawn reported.
Leaders of the pro-dialogue moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference including the conglomerate chairman, Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq, were placed under house arrest on Thursday by the authorities in Srinagar to thwart the proposed march and sit-in by them on World Human Rights Day.Almost all the senior separatist leaders of the moderate group, including Mirwaiz himself, professor Abdul Gani Bhat, Shabir Shah, Naeem Ahmad Khan were placed under house arrest.
China's invitation to Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq for a visit is 'unrelated' to India allowing the Dalai Lama to tour Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese scholars said on Monday, as they asserted that Beijing was 'not that petty-minded to take revenge'.Chinese experts, quoted by People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, claimed that China is not interfering in the dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan despite Beijing's invitation to the Mirwaiz.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday deplored the attacks on moderate Huriryat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq saying it was against the democratic traditions of the country.
Separatist groups in Kashmir on Thursday reacted angrily to the death sentence awarded to two locals, who were held guilty by a Delhi court in the 1996 Lajpat Nagar bomb blast case, in which 13 persons were killed.The moderate and hard-line groups of the separatist conglomerate All Parties Hurriyat Conference, headed by Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani respectively, have called for a protest shutdown on Friday against the death sentence.
At least six people were killed and 27 tankers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were set on fire during an attack by suspected militants on an oil depot close to Islamabad. According to the BBC, dozens of tankers were being filled with fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan when the attack took place on Monday morning."Between 10 to 12 men armed with automatic weapons stormed the depot from two sides. They opened indiscriminate fire on the tankers," said an official.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police have registered a case against Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference, over burning of government properties by a mob during a protest rally in Srinagar, official sources said. An FIR was registered against the Mirwaiz at Shergarhi police station in Srinagar city under sections 121, 121-A, 153, 153-A, 336 and 446 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC), the sources said.
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani evening issued a call for Shopian march and a week-long protest programme against the alleged rape and murder of two women last week.
Condemning the attack on separatist leader Fazal Haq Qureshi, Hurriyat Conference on Saturday said it will not be cowed down by such acts and will pursue the path of dialogue for resolving the Kashmir problem.
Chairman of the moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq intends to visit China after the Eid festival, following his visit to Pakistan.
One person was killed in Srinagar on Friday when the vehicle he was traveling in was targeted by a stone-pelting mob, which was protesting against the state government's decision to put senior separatist leaders Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani under house arrest."A stone hit Sheikh on the head. He was rushed to Soura medical institute, where he succumbed to the injury," the officer said.
Rashid was arrested on August 9 last year, since he was unable to give any convincing answers to the questions, the NIA said.
A general shutdown called by All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) headed by Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Thursday affected normal life across summer capital Srinagar and other district headquarters of the valley.
"I believe that China is not a party to the conflict (over Kashmir) but China has a stake as far as peace in the region is concerned. So, the Hurriyat Conference welcomes the approach adopted by China and America jointly in terms of addressing the issue of Kashmir in South Asia," Farooq said. He was referring to the Sino-US joint statement issued on Tuesday after a meeting between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
Separatists on Friday extended the shutdown call in Kashmir till July 18 to protest against the killing of civilians and demanding lifting of curfew in the valley.
The strike affected attendance in government offices and banks, the officials said.
Today, you give away Kashmir, tomorrow you will have to give away Hyderabad and then Coimbatore and then Moradabad and so on.
After People's League chief Sheikh Abdul Aziz last week, Shabir Shah has joined the moderate separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference headed by Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq.
"My decision to join the moderate group is aimed at strengthening the separatist voice in Kashmir," Aziz said. "Kashmiris are the basic party to the dispute, and must be included in the ongoing peace process to make it meaningful and result-oriented," he added.
Chairmen of both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Moulvi Omar Farooq and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Mohammad Yaseen Malik have been put under house arrest to prevent them from leading the Friday demonstrations in the valley.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday evening released chairman of the hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yaseen Malik and chairman of moderate faction of Hurriyat Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.They were arrested ahead of their march to Lal Chowk last month. Geelani was taken to a hospital in Srinagar on Monday evening, after he complained of sickness in police custody.
"India should understand that it cannot resolve the Kashmir issue by keeping pro-freedom groups away from the dialogue process."
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".