JKLF rejects roundtable, announces Safar-e-Azadi

Srinagar, Apr 18: Rejecting the third roundtable called by the Centre in New Delhi on April 24 to discuss the Kashmir issue, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said it will start a ''Safar-e-Azadi'' campaign across the valley from May 6 to force India and Pakistan to involve the people of the trouble-torn state in the ongoing peace process.

''We have received an invitation from the Centre to attend the third roundtable in New Delhi on April 24 just five minutes back,'' JKLF chairman Mohammad Yaseen Malik told reporters here this afternoon.

However, he said, ''We reject the conference as it serves no purpose.'' ''We rejected earlier conferences and have rejected it now also,'' he said.

He said the people of the state welcomed the peace process and supported the bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, as Kashmiris were in favour of total peace in the entire region.

But until the people of the Jammu and Kashmir were involved in the peace process going on for the past four years between India and Pakistan such conferences would fail to make any breakthrough, Mr Malik said.

Mr Malik said if India and Pakistan were sincere and serious to resolve the Kashmir issue, they had to involve the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who wre the worst sufferers.

He said bilateral talks between India and Pakistan and some leaders of Kashmir had failed to resolve the issue, which had claimed lakhs of lives so far.

The JKLF chief referred to the Shimla and Tashkand agreement between India and Pakistan and the Indira-Sheikh accord in 1975. Those who were supporting Sheikh before 1975, took up the arms and started liberation movement, he said, adding that any such agreement will have to face the same consequences. Until the people of the state are involved, there is no gurantee of peace in South Asia, he said.

He said India and Pakistan meetings after three to six months have so far failed to change the ground situation in Kashmir.

India and Pakistan are talking about their self-interest and nobody was talking about Kashmir, he said.

About the true representatives of the people of the state, he said let India and Pakistan hold a refeerendum in their respective areas.

On demilitarisation, he said the Army was replaced by BSF and now Special Operation Group (SOG) of state police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) replaced BSF.

The SOG and CRPF are involved in the custodial and other killings and they too have powers to kill anyone, he said.

He said if India was sincere on the demilitarisation issue, let it talk with the militant leadership to make the atmosphere conducive.

Let India talk to mujahideen leadership in any third country as was done in Nagaland, he said, adding that the situation will become normal within 24 hours if India was sincere.

About the '' Safar-e-Azadi'' ( Journey to Independence) bus service, he said it will start from May six from Deksum, Kokernag, in south Kashmir to force India and Pakistan to involve the people in the process.

It will travel to all parts of the state, he said and added if it failed to get any response ''we will launch sustained peoples agitation on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC).

UNI