Hurriyat faction led by Mirwaiz urges India, Pakistan to resume J-K dialogue soon

SRINAGAR: The separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference faction, headed by Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, on Monday called for a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue and said that further delay may aggravate the security and political situations in the South Asian region.

“We at the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) have always wanted a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue in accordance with the will and aspirations of all the people of J-K. We stand firm and committed on this demand,” it said in a statement here.

The amalgam faction has urged both India and Pakistan to resume dialogue at the earliest and seek a permanent and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue "as per the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, by including them as the main stakeholders". It asserted that the people of the erstwhile state “are bearing the brunt of the conflict for the past 73 years and living in hellish conditions.”

The Hurriyat Conference said that the Centre’s August 5, 2019 “muscular move” and its “most brutal implementation” on ground is a “most sordid chapter in the tragic saga” of J-K. “It’s been one year and lockdowns and imprisonments continue while one after another anti-J-K people and anti majority community (Muslim) laws and ordinances are being thrust on the people as reminders of aggression. Even observance of religious occasions is barred,” the statement alleged.

It said that the “unilateral decision to change the demographic and physical character of J-K and undermine its disputed nature acknowledged by the world will not change the reality of the Kashmir issue nor the need to resolve it peacefully”. It cautioned that the government decisions have only increased the resentment in almost all regions of J-K manifold and that people of Kashmir “have and will continue to protest it despite the severest crackdown being foisted on them.”

Meanwhile, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) announced on Monday that it will observe August 5 as “black day”. While speaking to reporters, a group of party activists, including Rouf Bhat said that “unconstitutional measures” taken on August 5 last year and later “have left disastrous impact on J-K, worse than a natural calamity could leave.”

It said that the party will hold a protest on August 5 but refused to disclose the venue for obvious reasons.

The group said that the party has faith in the Supreme Court of India and hopes that it will soon restore the special status of J&K. The party also called for “the time-honoured mechanism of dialogue and engagement with all the stakeholders” to resolve the issues in the erstwhile state. One of the activists, Harbaksh Singh, warned, “Enforcing the peace of graveyard and calling it normalcy is an illusion.”