SRINAGAR: Senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has reaffirmed full support for meaningful dialogue to resolve long-standing Kashmir dispute.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement issued here said he has always strongly and repeatedly advocated engagement and dialogue with the political aspirations and sentiments of the people of occupied Jammu Kashmir as a means of resolution.
Responding to Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh’s statements in election rallies in Banihal and Ramban in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, as reported in media, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who was once again put under house arrest last week, said that certain facts need to be reiterated to set the record straight.
Hurriyat Conference said that in September 2016 Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was detained at the Cheshma Shahi sub jail. A letter was handed over to him by the jail authorities from Ms Mehbooba Mufti written in her capacity as president of PDP and not as the Chief Minister which she was at that time, requesting him to meet with a visiting delegation of opposition MPs and talk to them. After which AIMIM head Mr Asadudin Owaisi, a member of the visiting opposition delegation, came to see Mirwaiz in the sub jail. During the meeting Owaisi told Mirwaz that a delegation of MPs wants to meet the Hurriyat leadership regarding the grim situation.
Expressing great anguish, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq requested Owaisi to ask the authorities to stop the killings and allow the Hurriyat leadership lodged in different jails and under house arrests to meet with each other and discuss the situation among themselves first before they decide if they can collectively talk to the delegation and figure out if the opposition MPs can help in some serious attempt at long term engagement, or if it is just another attempt at crisis management which will be dumped once the crisis is over as past experiences have shown. Mirwaiz clarified that no leader is in a position to decide on this individually. Owaisi agreed to it and said he will convey this request to the authorities and left. After that nothing was heard of it.
Hurriyat said right from the time of its engagement with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani to Indian PM Manmohan Singh he has participated in every opportunity that was made available by the Govt of India.
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