Mirwaiz Umer Farooq’s Meeting with Kashmir Militants in PoK !

By Animesh Roul

Jammu and Kashmir’s All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq who is presently visiting Pakistan along with other senior Kashmiri leaders has reportedly met several Islamic militant leaders operating from Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) , including Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, the leader of the Al-Umar Mujahedin militant outfit. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq in his quest to convince the leaderships of United Jehad Council (UJC) to give up their armed campaign and go for negotiations to resolve the vexed Kashmir issue, also believed to have met the commanders of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Mushtaq Zargar was the only Indian among the three terrorists (Maulana Azhar Masood and Umer Shaikh) who were released after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight 814 at Kandahar in December 1999, in exchange of over 150 hostages.

The United Jehad Council (UJC), an amalgam of various Pakistan-based terrorist groups (e.g. LeT, JeM and Al Umar) had criticized Mirwaiz’s views on Kashmir earlier. The UJC had rejected Mirwaiz’s call to give up armed struggle, to pave way for a peaceful negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue. Most of the Militant leaders have expressed shock by the "baseless" and "uncalled" for statement of the Mirwaiz and his colleagues (in APHC-Moderate) and termed them "ignorant” of the Kashmir struggle.

Mirwaiz’s meeting with militants there, would certainly raise eyebrows in India and it would take a political picture in the coming days and can put Congress led UPA government and PM Manmohan Singh in an embarrassing situation. The meeting also can put Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf into a tight spot, as Islamabad has been denying the presence of Zargar and other militants ‘most wanted’ by Indian authority in its territory since long. Even Mirwaiz Umer Farooq himself might be in the line militant fire back home in Kashmir due to his overtly 'anti-gun-militancy' viewpoints. There was already a grenade attack on Mirwaiz’s residence in the Nageen area of capital Srinagar prior to his visit to Pakistan a week ago.

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