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| 24 November 2004 | Wednesday | 11 Shawwal 1425 |
Kashmiri groups oppose division
MIRPUR, Nov 23: Kashmiris, including politicians, lawyers and religious figures, on Tuesday opposed the division of their disputed state in any future settlement as they spoke to a group of visiting journalists from India and the occupied Kashmir.
They were unanimous in their calls to India and Pakistan to allow Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control to meet each other and let them play a pivotal role in the peace process between the two countries.
In several meetings after the 22 journalists arrived in Mirpur on Monday night at the start of their week-long and first ever trip to Azad Kashmir, traditional calls for holding UN-mandated plebiscite to decide whether Kashmir should accede to Pakistan or India seemed to take a back seat. But groups, including the Azad Kashmir chapter of the Pakistan People's Party, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation League, the Mirpur District Bar Association, and members of the divided families, still seemed to have no clear idea about what should be done after President Pervez Musharraf recently called for considering options other than a plebiscite.
Discussions about a possible solution were held in the light of the remarks made by the president last month in which he spoke of seven regions of the Jammu and Kashmir - five under the Indian control two under Pakistan control - and called for identifying them before a possible demilitarisation.
The Kashmiri groups acknowledged there was no single leader or party that could speak for the whole state but they hoped that Kashmiri leaders from both sides of the LoC would be able to reach a common ground if they were allowed to meet and consult each other.
While they welcomed the plans being discussed by Islamabad and New Delhi to start a bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, there were demands also for opening more bus routes to allow movement of Kashmiris across the LoC in other areas as well.
While PPP leaders ruled out any solution of the Kashmir problem without the consent of the people, JKLL chief Abdul Majeed Malik and most other groups said the Jammu and Kashmir should remain intact as it had existed before being divided in 1947-48.
The PPP and Kashmiri people would not accept any solution that excluded them, AJK PPP's secretary-general Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin said at a dinner he hosted for the journalists on Monday night. "It (Kashmir) is not a piece of cake to be divided," a PPP figure and former state legislative assembly speaker Abdul Majeed Malik said.
JKLL chief Abdul Majeed Malik, a former chief justice of Azad Kashmir High Court, said in remarks to the journalists on Tuesday morning that Kashmiri parties from both sides of the LoC would be able to find a solution acceptable to all sides if they were given an opportunity to do so.
LAWYERS' INITIATIVE: In a speech later at a journalists' meeting with the District Bar Association, Mr Malik proposed that lawyers' representatives from both parts of the state should meet some time in the future in Mirpur or Muzaffarabad to give a "right direction" to the Kashmiri people in finding a solution.
Bar association's president Riaz Inqilabi urged New Delhi to give a positive response to President Musharraf's proposals about possible options for a solution and said both India and Pakistan should withdraw their forces from Kashmir to help the process.
Leaders of a group of migrants from the Rajauri district of the Indian-held Kashmir, led by Javed Iqbal Mirza, called for opening a bus route between Rajauri and Mirpur districts.
"If India and Pakistan are sincere (about solving the problem), they should withdraw their forces (from Kashmir)," a group member, Mohammad Khalil, said. "You go to your homes and we will be in our home."
Another member of the group, Mr Sharif Tariq, said all prejudices of the past should be set aside and all political groups in Jammu and Kashmir should be involved in an intra-state dialogue.
Jamiat Ulema Jammu and Kashmir president Pir Mohammad Atiqur Rehman, who is also a member of the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly, said in a speech at lunch hosted by him that a plebiscite in Kashmir would be the best solution, but if it were not possible, some other solution should be considered seriously.
The Kashmiri and Indian journalists received a warm welcome when they drove to Mirpur on Monday night from Lahore on a trip organised by the South Asian Free Media Association (Safma), a non-governmental organisation.
The trip follows a similar path-breaking visit last month to the Indian-held Kashmir by a group of Pakistani and Azad Kashmir journalists. Local journalists showered flower petals on visitors as the group, led by Safma's India chapter general secretary Vinod Sharma, arrived at the Mirpur Press Club on Monday night.
The group arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday night and will go to Muzaffarabad on Thursday for a three-day stay there. It also plans to visit Gilgit on Nov 28.
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