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Govt not yet ready to give passports to Hurriyat leaders

All Party Hurriyat Conference chief Abdul Ghani Bhatt Thursday returned to Srinagar disappointed after being told that the Vajpayee government was not yet willing to issue passports to it leader to travel to Pakistan, a top home ministry official said.

Bhatt was in Delhi till Wednesday and he had lunch and dinner with Amarjit Singh Dulhat, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing and now an officer on special duty in the Prime Minister's Office looking after Kashmir.

"Dulhat told him that the Vajpayee government is still not willing to issue passports to the Hurriyat leaders," the official told rediff.com.

Dulhat, who also served as a senior IB official in Srinagar, is understood to have enjoyed cordial relations with Hurriyat leaders, chiefly Bhatt.

The official pointed out that after being given the message by Dulhat, the Hurriyat chief was "perceptibly" disappointed and returned to Srinagar Thursday morning.

A Hurriyat spokesman in New Delhi confirmed that Bhatt had returned.

According to the MHA official, the Hurriyat chairman also met Pakistan high Commissioner Ashraf Jahangir Qazi on Tuesday and his meetings with both Indian and Pakistani officials in New Delhi indicated the efforts of both countries to sort out the Kashmir tangle through track II diplomacy.

Significantly, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar is presently in Srinagar.

NCP leader Tariq Anwar, however, contended that he did not know anything about Pawar's Srinagar visit, saying that, "I have been extremely busy in party work."

It was at the insistence of Union Home Minister L K Advani that hardcore pro-Pakistan supporters in the Hurriyat like Bhatt were denied passports.

Strangely however, the official pointed out that the Vajpayee government had issued a passport to the People's League leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who is going to Pakistan on April 17.

According to the official, Aziz is equally a pro-Pak votary but he was issued a passport because he wants to visit Pakistan to attend his nephew's wedding.

Advani had said that the government is examining the issue of issuing passports to Hurriyat leaders on a case-to-case basis.

He also indicated that various cases had been lodged by the government against both Bhatt and Aziz but the issue of passport to the latter was on "humanitarian grounds."

The Kashmir Cease-Fire: The Complete Coverage

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