Separatist unity moves jolted in Kashmir

SRINAGAR - Steps towards unity between the two groups of the separatist Hurriyat Conference received a setback here Wednesday when the hardline senior separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani said his party would carry forward its own protest programme to highlight rights violations in Kashmir.

Addressing a media conference at his Hyderpora residence in summer capital Srinagar, Geelani said two members of the moderate Hurriyat group, Maulana Muhammad Abdullah Tari and Aga Syed Hassan had met him to chalk out a common protest programme.

“I told them that we did not want any confrontation, but would follow our own protest programme and they should follow their own,” Geelani said.

The hardline Kashmiri separatist leader said his group would bear all the expenses for the legal defence of the two Kashmiris sentenced to death by a Delhi court in the May 1996 Lajpat Nagar bomb blast case.

“There are many loopholes in the verdict and we have decided to provide all legal defence to the people convicted in this case. For this, we will launch a fund-raising campaign across Kashmir,” he said.

He also announced that he would lead a protest march Friday from a local mosque in Srinagar to the office of the United Nations Military Observers’ Group (UNMOG) to highlight human rights violations in Kashmir.

“There will be a peaceful protest Friday after prayers,” he announced.

Geelani also condemned what he called the indiscriminate use of the Public Safety Act (PSA) by the authorities for detaining youth in Kashmir.

Criticizing the Congress-National Conference coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, Geelani said: “The map for such governments is drawn by parties like the RSS and the colours for those maps are provided by regional parties like the National Conference.”