Day after Rajnath’s remarks on 2016 talks, Mirwaiz says Hurriyat always supported dialogue on Kashmir

Chief cleric of Kashmir Mirwaiz Umar Farooq deliver sermons inside the Jamia Masjid or Grand Mosque in Srinagar. File.
| Photo Credit: NISSAR AHMAD

Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, while reacting to Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s reference to a dialogue initiative of 2016, on Monday (September 9, 2024) said his amalgam “never opposed dialogue on Kashmir and strongly advocated engagement as a means of resolution”.

“The Hurriyat is surprised to know, for the first time, that this was an initiative at the behest of the Government of India. The Hurriyat has always strongly and repeatedly advocated engagement and dialogue with the political aspirations and sentiments of the people of J&K as a means of resolution,” the Mirwaiz, who claims to be under house arrest again in Srinagar, said, in a statement. 

Rajnath’s comments

The Union Minister, who spoke at two election rallies in J&K on Sunday, said that four Opposition MPs were assigned to talk to the Hurriyat in 2016 with the approval of the Union government. Mr. Singh said senior leaders like Sharad Yadav of the JD(U) and from the Left parties visited the Hurriyat leaders.

“They shut their doors. They did not talk to senior MPs of our country,’’ Mr. Singh was quoted as saying. A 26-member group visited Kashmir to meet senior Hurriyat leaders after several months of street protests in the backdrop of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani.

The Mirwaiz had met the Opposition leader Asaduddin Owaisi of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in 2016 in a detention centre in Srinagar. “Mr. Owaisi said a delegation of MPs wants to meet the Hurriyat leadership. We requested Mr. Owaisi sahab to ask the government 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,” the Mirwaiz said.

The Mirwaiz said his Hurriyat, right from the time of its engagement with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K.Advani to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, “has participated in every opportunity that was made available by the Government of India”. 

“Despite the huge personal costs borne by the Mirwaiz and other Hurriyat leaders and their families for such engagements, the Hurriyat never shied away from them,” the Mirwaiz said.

He said dialogue was the “only way to ensure peace and stability in J&K and the region and prosperity for the people and not for any personal profit or power for Hurriyat.”