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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Dr Ajay Churungoo, leader of Panun Kashmir, an organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, says the introduction of retired IAS officer Wajahat Habibullah to hold talks with leaders of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference undermines the position of K C Pant, who was earlier designated the government's interlocutor in the state.
"We are suspicious of the designs of those who have asked Habibullah to hold talks with the Hurriyat Conference," Churungoo told rediff.com
"What is the purpose of having K C Pant as government interlocutor when the former adviser to the governor of Jammu & Kashmir has been asked to do the same job?"
Churungoo also questioned Habibullah's credentials, saying that he had tried to project the violence in Kashmir as 'secular violence' when he was posted to the Indian embassy in Washington.
Asked about the Jaish-e-Mohammed's directive to its cadre to return to Kashmir and restrict their activities to the state, Churungoo said this was a serious development. "Jaish-e-Mohammed is now trying to tell the world that the violence in Kashmir is indigenous and not cross-border terrorism," he said. "This will give Pakistan a pretext to tell the world that it has nothing to do with terrorism in Kashmir."
Churungoo also said that reports in some national newspapers about more than 5,000 Al Qaeda members and Taliban soldiers waiting to enter Kashmir were making the Pandits more apprehensive. "If these people enter Kashmir," he warned, "the entry of America into Kashmir would become automatic and that is what Pakistan wants."
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