Say MPs lack mandate for engaging on a clear agenda
While refusing to meet the all-party delegation to Kashmir, the separatists on Sunday said the delegation lacked the mandate of engagement on a clear agenda.
“One fails to understand what hope to attach with a delegation which has not spelled out its mandate for any engagement on a clear agenda. It is the same Parliament which has given unfettered powers to their occupying force to use violence to hold J&K forcibly with India against all norms of civilised behaviour and international law resulting in death, destruction, collective punishment and humiliation,” said a joint statement issued by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik here.
It said New Delhi’s engagement with the people of J&K has been only through “state violence perpetrated through armed forces”.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had invited separatists to engage with the all-party delegation to start a credible and meaningful political dialogue and resolution process to end the stalemate. “Cutting across party lines and political positions, the country’s political leadership has reached out and it is for us to collectively lend it credence and credibility,” Mehbooba said in a letter of invitation to the separatists on Saturday.
However, separatists refused to meet the panel and said, “Everyone knows that people have been shouting ‘azadi’ on the roads for those who want to listen and writing on the walls and placards for those who can see. The dirty ambitions of the collaborators and their masters in Delhi have turned them deaf and blind.”
Separatists said the “deceitful methods of crisis management” through parliamentary delegations and track-II diplomacy only prolong the sufferings of the people. “They (delegations) can’t take the place of a genuine transparent agenda-based dialogue to address the core issue of the people’s right to self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir,” the statement said.
