Always for talks, says Hurriyat after Rajnath mentions 2016 rebuff

SRINAGAR: Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat Conference reaffirmed support Monday for dialogue with the Centre, a day after defence minister Rajnath Singh told rallies in Jammu that the Centre had sent a parliamentary delegation in 2016 to initiate talks for peace in J&K but the Hurriyat leaders had “shut their doors on them”.

At rallies in Ramban and Banihal on Sunday, Rajnath had further said he had spoken to then CM Mehbooba Mufti about how normality could be achieved, even agreeing to withdraw cases against minors. Rajnath was Union home minister then, and BJP and Mehbooba’s PDP ran a coalition govt in J&K.

“We even brought (some opposition MPs) Sharad Yadav and other senior leaders to negotiate with Hurriyat but they closed the doors to the visiting delegation,” Rajnath had said. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who led Hurriyat’s hardline faction, had turned away the delegation of MPs, led by Rajnath. Geelani died in 2021.

On Monday, Mirwaiz Umar -- who then led Hurriyat’s moderate faction -- sought “to set the record straight” about the events surrounding the parliamentary delegation.

According to Mirwaiz Umar, he was in jail at the time and Mehbooba sent him a letter as PDP chief through jail officials requesting him to meet the delegation. “AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of the delegation, came to see me in jail. Owaisi told me the delegation wanted to meet the Hurriyat leadership regarding the grim situation (in J&K),” Mirwaiz Umar told TOI.

He further recalled what he had told Owaisi. “I requested Owaisi Sahab to ask the govt to stop killings and allow Hurriyat leaders, lodged in different jails and under house arrest, to meet each other and discuss the situation among themselves first before they decide if they could collectively talk to the delegation,” Mirwaiz Umar said.

According to the Hurriyat leader, this was done to figure out if the MPs could help forge a “long-term engagement (with the govt) or it was just another attempt at crisis management to be dumped once the crisis was over, as past experiences had shown”. “No leader was in a position to take a decision regarding this (talks) individually. Owaisi agreed, said he would convey this to the govt and left. After that, nothing was heard of it,” Mirwaiz Umar recalled.

He asserted that he had always advocated “dialogue keeping political aspirations and sentiments of the people of J&K as a means of resolution”. According to Mirwaiz Umar, the Hurriyat group led by him participated in every opportunity made available by the Centre for talks, dating back to the times when Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were PM. This, Mirwaiz Umar said, came at great peril and huge personal costs to Hurriyat leaders.

Emphasising that this was not done for Hurriyat’s “personal profit or power”, Mirwaiz Umar renewed his commitment to dialogue. “Even after drastic unilateral changes in 2019 (abrogation of special status) and prolonged house detention till Sept 2023, I have been repeating my advocacy of talks but to no avail,” he said.