Hurriyat leaders

Prominent Hurriyat leader and strong votary of peace talks Abdul Gani Bhat on Friday advised both india as well as Pakistan not to vitiate atmosphere of friendship on "flimsy grounds".

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has invited hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to visit Pakistan, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

Crisis often provides opportunity. The current situation in Kashmir is a crisis. Is there a way forward? Yes, but it needs courage and wisdom on all sides—the Indian government, the state government, the Hurriyat leaders and the local people.

Pakistan has admitted that the timing of its high commissioner's meeting with the Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi ahead of the foreign secretary-level talks was "perhaps not totally right".

Police today arrested three local Hurriyat leaders, who were planning to enforce a bandh in Surankote town of Poonch district.

SRINAGAR: Minutes after attending the fourth day ceremony of assassinated Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Lone, fire-brand Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former chairman of the 23-party conglomerate, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, left for Delhi to attend the farewell party hosted by Pakistani High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.

LAHORE: Pak's Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hassain Ahmed has said he recognises only hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani as Hurriyat leader.

Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit on Monday played down his meeting with Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi.

US & UK ambassadors have refused to meet Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Shabir Ahmad Shah, infuriated by their meeting with Iranian ambassador.

J&K police deployed its personnel outside the homes of senior Hurriyat leaders in Srinagar in a move designed to amplify New Delhi’s opposition to any engagement between Hurriyat leaders and Aziz. Soon, however, the curbs were suddenly removed.

The arrest of seven Hurriyat leaders on Monday comes after one-and-a-half months of painstaking investigation that unearthed electronic evidence of their communication links with four dozen J&K youths tracked repeatedly amid stone-pelting mobs over the past year.

Government officials said that Hurriyat leaders have approached some lawyers who they think are “sympathetic” to the cause of “Kashmiri separatism”.

Sources said strong pointers to the Hurriyat leader’s links with terror fund managers have emerged after raids were carried out on his residences in Delhi and Srinagar.

SRINAGAR: In yet another swoop against Kashmir militant leaders stationed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the ISI has reportedly arrested convener of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference along with other three militant leaders in Muzaffarabad.

SRINAGAR: Former RAW chief A.S. Dulat's one-week stay here to motivate the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders to participate in the coming assembly elections has failed to yield any positive result.

According to sources close to the J&K government, Intelligence Bureau director Dineshwar Sharma had directly spoken to J&K DGP K Rajendra Kumar on Thursday morning regarding the Centre’s strategy to stall Hurriyat’s plans to engage with Aziz ahead of NSA-level talks and help Pakistan raise the Kashmir bogey.

Others who may be put under house arrest as part of the Centre’s determined move to prevent them from aiding Pakistan’s plan to raise the Kashmir bogey are Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Moulvi Abbas Ansari and JKLF leaders like Showkat Ahmad Bakshi.

Driver turned successful businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali, arrested in the Jammu & Kashmir terror funding probe, allegedly operated as the main ‘hawala’ conduit between Pakistanbased financiers and separatists with the diaries he maintained mentioning several Hurriyat leaders.

SRINAGAR: Itehad-ul-Mujahideen is likely to issue a list of the blacklisted leaders of both the divided groups of Hurriyat Conference soon, as they according to Ittehad-Ul-Majhideen are linked with the Indian intelligence agencies.

In view of threats from some militant groups, Jammu and Kashmir Police have reviewed the security of all the moderate Hurriyat leaders, including its Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.

SRINAGAR: Even as the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) responded cynically to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s Saturday speech, police here arrested several middle-level leaders of the conglomerate, including its spokesman on Sunday night.

Following reports that Hurriyat leaders were being placed under house arrest, Islamabad said on Thursday that it expects the Indian government to not prevent All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leaders from meeting Pakistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Sartaj Aziz during his two-day visit to India from August 23.

NSA M K Narayanan said that it was not at all clear who had fired the fatal bullet at Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was part of the "LoC march" on August 11.

SRINAGAR: Slain Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Lone was on Wednesday laid to rest in downtown Idgah ground here amid tight security. Lone worked for peace in J&K: PM Sajjad blames Farooq for Lone's murder Hurriyat strike paralyses Kashmir

SRINAGAR: In a bid to defuse the crisis within the Hurriyat Conference, four senior Hurriyat leaders met in Srinagar on Wednesday at Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's office.

SRINAGAR: Senior Hurriyat leader and spokesman of Muslim League, Hakeem Abdul Rashid, released a month back after detention for nearly two years, was again arrested on Thursday, official sources said.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) questioned three Hurriyat leaders on Saturday to investigate the role of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations in fuelling unrest in the Kashmir valley.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Protest against the proposed visit of a three-member team of Hurriyat Conference to Kerala on September 2 has intensified with Rashtraraksha Vedi, a newly formed organisation of people from different walks of live, announcing its decision to oppose the visit.