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Ex-CM Shah revives plan for 'intra-Kashmir' dialogue

Ghulam Mohammed Shah, former chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir and chairman of the J&K Awami National Conference, has convened an "intra-Kashmir conference" in "search of peace and solutions" in the third week of August in Srinagar.

Politicians, intellectuals, lawyers and journalists from both sides of the Line of Control are expected to take part in the two-day convention.

Shah, brother-in-law of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, had planned a similar convention in March 2001 in Jammu, but that did not take place because of the government's refusal to issue visas to invitees from Pakistan, including Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Amanullah Khan.

Khan has been included in the list of invitees this time too.

G M Shah's son Muzaffar, who addressed a press conference in his capacity as chairman of the organising committee, said Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, had also been invited.

"We have written a letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hope that the Government of India will allow the delegates from Pakistan to attend," he said. "Even if they are not issued visas, we will go ahead with the convention and read out the messages of the delegates and show their video clips."

He hoped that the ruling National Conference would make the Sher-e-Kashmir convention hall in Srinagar available for the convention.

Asked if his party would take part in the forthcoming assembly election, Muzaffar Shah said his father had laid down three conditions for doing so:

1. Constitution of two boards of eminent persons at the central and state level to co-ordinate with the Election Commission and ensure that the polls are free and fair. The central board could include former prime ministers, former chief justices of the Supreme Court, bureaucrats and journalists. The state-level body could include eminent politicians from all parties, including the Hurriyat Conference, former judges of the Jammu & Kashmir high court, lawyers, bureaucrats and journalists.
2. A statement from the President of India promising free and fair elections. Asked if an assurance from the prime minister would not do, he said, "Prime Minister Vajpayee is himself a party with vested interests."
3. The elected legislators to be treated as the true representatives of the people of Jammu & Kashmir and talks to be initiated with them to resolve the dispute.

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