SRINAGAR, 20 June — Kashmiri separatist leaders yesterday offered to persuade separatist groups active in Jammu and Kashmir to declare a cease-fire.

All-Party Hurriyat Conference Chairman Abul Gani Bhat said separatist leaders were ready to go to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to persuade the chiefs of these groups to cease hostilities.

"We will negotiate peace with them and a peaceful resolution to the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir," Bhat told reporters in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s summer capital.

Bhat, however, said that as a prelude to the proposed visit, India must withdraw its forces in Kashmir, release all prisoners so that a dialogue can begin, lift the ban on public meetings and stop "human rights violations".

"If the government of India agrees in principle (to withdraw troops), then we (Hurriyat leaders) can move to Pakistan and talk to the mujahedeen leadership," Bhat said.

"If mujahedeen leaders also accept (the cease-fire) in principle then the talks on the troop withdrawal and the cease-fire can start," he said. Bhat said the Hurriyat would also work for the return of the Kashmiri Hindus — who fled the Valley when the insurgency broke out in 1989 — if New Delhi responds positively to its proposals.

He labeled as "unfortunate" the rejection of the Hurriyat’s "election commission" by Indian Law Minister Arun Jaitley on the floor of Parliament. "The steps I announced today would have been announced by us much earlier if India had responded positively to our announcement regarding the constitution of the election commission," Bhat said.

"They (the Indians) rejected it, so it is finished," he said, adding that India knew Hurriyat leaders would "win hands down" at the polls.

"If the Indians do not allow us to do it, we cannot do it," he said.

But Bhat said the Hurriyat would go ahead with the election commission if India changed its mind.

The Hurriyat had floated the idea of forming a parallel election commission to oversee assembly elections in Kashmir, scheduled for October. But the authorities had summarily dismissed the proposal.

The decision to renew the offer to persuade the separatist leaders to call a cease-fire was taken at an extended joint meeting of the Hurriyat executive and the general council. While seven members constitute the executive committee, all 23 constituents sit in the general council.

Bhat said that in the light of his fresh offer, it was for the government to decide whether Hurriyat leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Yasin Malik and Sheikh Aziz should continue to remain in prison.

All three arrested Hurriyat leaders have been booked under stringent anti-terrorism laws. Bhat claimed the Hurriyat had always been positive in its approach to the Kashmir problem.

"When the Indian prime minister announced a cease-fire, we proposed our visit to Pakistan. We also proposed a four-three formula: Four members of the Hurriyat talk to Delhi and three talk to Pakistan." The Hurriyat chairman noted: "There is tremendous pressure on both India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute in line with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. This pressure is there especially from the US, Russia, Japan and Germany."

India accuses Pakistan of training, arming and funding separatist groups in Kashmir. The nuclear-armed neighbors nearly went to war following an attack near Jammu last month.

Meanwhile, suspected rebels early yesterday shot dead a ruling party official in Srinagar, police said. The activists fired at old Abdul Rashid, the block president of the ruling National Conference, in Srinagar, while he was waiting for a bus, a police spokesman said.

However, troops shot dead three activists in the southern Kashmir district of Udhampur yesterday, police said.