Search the Internet            Tips

Crucial Hurriyat executive council
meet begins

"We still hope that government would release travel documents to all the executive council members to enable us to send a team to Pakistan for talks with militant leadership and other officials," said Hurriyat chairman Abdul Ghani Butt before the meeting began.

He said, "Even if these (travel documents) are released a day before the January 15 deadline, we will send the team to Pakistan. It will be a better team than you visualise."

The seven-member executive council is the highest decision making body of the 23-party amalgam. Asked about the possibility of the government not releasing travel documents to all the executive members, he said this would be taken up at the meeting.

However, Maulana Mohammad Abbas Ansari, who represents Ittehadul Muslimeen in the Hurriyat said, "If passports are not issued to all the seven executive members, we will not go to Pakistan".

Similar views were expressed by Mohammad Ashraf Saharai, who was representing the Jamaat-e-Islami in the absence of firebrand Jamaat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is undergoing treatment at a local hospital for a heart ailment.

"The government should release passports to all the seven members and leave the composition of the team to the Hurriyat executive," he said. "We have come here to discuss whether to send the team to Pakistan or not in the event the travel documents not being given to all the executive members," he added.

Mohammad Yaseen Malik, chairman of the JKLF, said the meet would decide the composition of the team. However, he refused comment when asked whether the team will visit Pakistan even if travel documents are not released to all the seven executive members saying, "This will have to be discussed."

COMPLETE COVERAGE
Government initiated ceasefire in J&K

Tell us what you think of this report