Jail threats will not change reality that Kashmir needs a resolution: Hurriyat to BJP
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat on Thursday said the open threat of jails and incarceration by members of the ruling dispensation would not change the reality that the Kashmir conflict needed a resolution between India and Pakistan.
The Hurriyat statement came a day after senior BJP leader Sunil Sharma said that the Hurriyat leaders and separatists had only two options left, either to join the mainstream or go to jail.
Reacting to the BJP statement, the Hurriyat said it resolutely stood by its principled stand that the Kashmir conflict had to be resolved, a fact admitted by both India and Pakistan.
“The resolution has to be to the satisfaction of the entire people of J&K, the main party in the conflict. The Hurriyat seeks lasting peace and stability and good neighbourly relations in the region, an immediate consequence of the settlement of the conflict. Such belief is at variance with the hyper nationalist outlook of the ruling dispensation in India at present,” the Hurriyat spokesman said.
The spokesman said the open threat of jail and incarceration by members of the ruling dispensation was unfortunate and authoritarian. “The ruling party member’s remarks that the ‘Hurriyat was not running a so-called Pakistan shop in Kashmir and will now have to run an Indian shop’ will not change the reality. Unlike such people, the Hurriyat has no vested interest or political ambition. It solely represents the aspirations of people of J&K with dignity and goodwill towards people of both the countries,” the Hurriyat said.
The Hurriyat said the youth was being relentlessly arrested in J&K under labels like over-ground workers, narrative terrorists, and militant sympathizers. “In such a scenario, it is incumbent upon activists and rights organizations in India and outside, and the UN, whose chief Antonio Gutteres recently visited India to take up this matter with the Government of India and provide respite to the people of J&K,” he said.
