SRINAGAR, 19 February 2004 — India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held its first-ever public meeting in Kashmir yesterday and urged Muslim rebels to give up arms.
“Terrorism will not work. Join the national mainstream... Ballot is more powerful than bullet,” BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu told a public rally in the heavily guarded Sher-e-Kashmir park in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
More than 1,000 BJP supporters waved party flags while security forces cordoned off the area to prevent rebel attacks during the meeting.
“Leave the guns. We are ready to talk. We are talking to Pakistan, we are talking to Hurriyat,” Naidu said.
Last month New Delhi held talks with moderates in the All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference, the main separatist alliance in Kashmir, the Himalayan region claimed by both India and Pakistan.
The two countries agreed to a “basic road map” for peace in three days of preparatory talks which ended successfully yesterday.
Kashmiri separatists yesterday hailed the agreement by India and Pakistan to open talks on the divided province and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s offer that Kashmiris could be involved.
“It is good that India and Pakistan will start discussions over Kashmir,” said separatist Shabir Shah, who has spent more than 20 years in Indian jails for espousing Kashmir’s secession.
“I welcome Musharraf’s remark that Kashmiris will have to be involved in the process at some stage,” he said.
Javed Mir, deputy chairman of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), also welcomed the two countries’ joint announcement.
“We have confidence in Musharraf and (Indian) Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that they will not ignore Kashmiris while finding a solution to the dispute,” he said.
Rebel violence has continued in the Himalayan region despite series of peace efforts by India and Pakistan.
Officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed since the rebellion broke out at the end of 1989.
Two militants and a woman were killed in Kashmir in separate incidents, officials said yesterday.
Two rebels belonging to the pro-Pakistan militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad were killed in an exchange of fire with troops in Mendhar, 225 km northwest of Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital, army spokesman Bhanwar Rathore said. In another incident an army officer was wounded when militants opened fire on a patrol party in the Urnakot area of Poonch yesterday.
Lone Party Split
The separatist People’s Conference (PC) founded by the late Abdul Gani Lone on Tuesday vertically split between his two sons, Sajjad Gani Lone and Bilal Gani Lone with both claiming that they represented the real party.
On Tuesday, Sajjad Gani Lone sacked his eldest brother Bilal Lone from the party and also announced that henceforth his party ceased to be a constituent of the Moulvi Abbas-led All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Only yesterday, the separatist APHC had decided to recognize late Lone’s eldest son and executive member Bilal lone as the chairman of PC after Bilal announced the expulsion of his younger brother Sajjad from the PC.
Sajjad had stirred up the hornet’s nest by launching a frontal attack on senior Hurriyat leader and a powerful member of the executive, Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq by lambasting the cleric politician for attending the funeral prayers of a slain local militant, Rafiq Dar who Sajjad claimed had killed his father in 2002.
— Additional input from agencies
