NEW DELHI, April 4: Pro-freedom Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik has been tortured in prison and his right ear has been badly damaged, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman Abdul Ghani Bhatt said on Thursday.

Bhatt told a news conference in Srinagar that the APHC would not participate in the proposed state polls to the Jammu and Kashmir assembly due in October and sought the assistance of the United States and China to help out with a peaceful settlement of the bloody dispute that continues to sour ties between India and Pakistan.

“Yasin Malik was tortured by Indian jail authorities and his ear has been seriously damaged,” an APHC official told Dawn from Srinagar. He said Bhatt had briefed the press on the matter.

Malik, head of the Srinagar-based Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, was picked up by the state police late last month, during a news conference he was due to address in Srinagar, on charges of collecting terror funds.

Subsequently, following a murderous attack on a Hindu temple by suspected Muslim militants in Jammu, APHC leader Abdul Ghani Lone was abused and assaulted by the head of the local Shiv Sena unit as armed policemen stood by silently and the cameras filmed the incident.

Adding to the humiliation is the absence of a clear direction ahead for the APHC.

Some APHC leaders privately told Dawn recently that they were not happy with what they termed a U-turn in Pakistan’s approach towards their struggle against Indian rule in Kashmir.

“Pakistan’s approach has left us wondering what lies ahead,” said one senior leader.

It was not immediately clear if Thursday’s remarks by Bhatt in which he was quoted as recommending China’s involvement with the United States in the resolution of the Kashmir issue was part of a piece with the recently forced line of thinking.

“There is a realisation (in the world community) that the conflicting approaches of the Americans and the Chinese put together can produce a crisis in the South Asia. Therefore China and America must be involved to resolve conflicting issues like Kashmir,” Bhatt was quoted by reporters as telling a crowded news conference at the APHC headquarters in Srinagar.

He said Americans and Chinese “are involved directly or indirectly, explicitly and inexplicitly” in the resolution of conflicts in south Asia. “They are also involved in the larger interest of strategic targets and security concerns as well as commercial interests,” he said.

Bhat said efforts are also afoot by the world community “at different levels to persuade India and Pakistan to a negotiating table.”

“An effort by the international community is also afoot that the situation in the south Asian region is brought under control as a consequence of nuclear weaponization of India and Pakistan,” he said.

The Hurriyat chief said efforts are on in “a third country” to try to find a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. He didn’t, however, name the country.

Hurriyat has been urging America to intervene in Kashmir, but this is for the first time the conglomerate has highlighted China’s involvement.

Equally significantly, after only recently floating the idea of parallel elections in the state, Bhatt ruled out participation in the coming Assembly elections.

The 23-party alliance took a decision six years back which has “neither been reviewed nor reversed and there appears no possibility to do so in future,” he told reporters.

“We consider, rightly so, answer to our problem does not lie in Assembly elections so we will not participate in the process,” he declared, according to the Press Trust of India.

Meanwhile, Star News quoted Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah as ruling out early assembly elections in the state, saying that they could not be held before September and that there was no urgency for the exercise.

According to Star News, Abdullah on his arrival from New Delhi said, that he saw no reason to hold early elections as his government had the mandate till October 9 this year. Citing several reasons against early polls, he said preparations for the electoral list had to be carried out and that would take a considerable period of time.

Bhatt denied reports that some Hurriyat leaders had gone to Pakistan seeking help of militants to participate in the elections and clarified that the members had gone to Islamabad to participate in a lawyers’ conference.

He described as political vendetta the arrest of senior executive member of Hurriyat, Yasin Malik on March 25.

“Malik was picked up forcibly and taken to Kud, Udhampur, Jammu and we do not know where else,” he said alleging that Malik’s ear that was operated upon in the United States was now damaged.—JN