Lone's guests couldn't make it this time too

By Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR JUNE 3. Both India and Pakistan played an equal role this time to abort the senior Hurriyat leader, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone's efforts to make the wedding reception of his son a gala event. If the Indian Embassy in Pakistan has refused visa to a number of invitees, the Pakistani authorities did not allow some of those granted visa to cross over to this side.

In November last year, the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi had done the same thing to refuse visa to hundreds of people invited by the JKLF chairman, Mr Amanullah Khan, to the wedding in Islamabad. Mr. Lone's Dubai-based son Sajjad married Mr. Khan's only daughter Asma and both have since returned to Srinagar for a short break. This time around, Mr Lone who had even hosted a party in Islamabad in November, invited around 100 persons from Pakistan and the Pakistan occupied Kashmir to attend the formal wedding reception here.

The invitees included Mr. Khan, the former PoK premier, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan and almost all the political leaders of PoK. A number of journalists based in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad had also been invited by Mr. Lone.

The invitees had applied for the visa to the Indian High Commission, but their requests were turned down on different grounds except that of two - Mr. Irshad Mehmood of the Urdu daily Nawai Waqt and Mr. Sultan Sikandar, a columnist. But with valid documents, the two were not allowed by the Pakistani authorities to cross over to India at the Wagah border. The reasons were given that the duo were not permitted to travel by bus. With this action on Pakistani government's part, none of Mr. Lone's guests from Pakistan or the PoK could attend the reception.

``We had invited the guests, they were not given visa and two who managed to get were stopped by the Pakistani authorities,'' Mr. Lone told The Hindu. It is beyond our control, he added. At today's reception, however, four of seven senior Hurriyat executive members Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Moulvi Abbas Ansari and Sheikh Abdul Aziz were conspicuous by their absence. The Hurriyat chairman, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, perhaps represented the entire Hurriyat and Mr. Yasin Malik is away in the U.S. for treatment.

The Pakistani High Commission had treated the invitees of Mr. Amanullah Khan in November last year in the same manner. A staunch supporter of an independent Kashmir, Mr. Khan had invited over 500 people from Jammu and Kashmir as also from other parts of India for the wedding. The long list of invitees included people from a cross-section of the people beginning from the President, Mr. K. R. Narayanan, the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, the J&K Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, to the leaders of All-Party Hurriyat Conference and a number of journalists. Those who applied for the visa to Pakistan High Commission were refused but no reasons were given. At that time, sources maintained that all the applications with Mr. Khan's invitation cards attached were sent to Pakistan's Interior Ministry in Islamabad which rejected all the applications.

Mr Lone, however, could get the visa from the High Commission on his own for 22 guests, including a number journalists from Delhi. Even the application forms for the Delhi- based invitees were submitted by Mr Lone's aide in the Union Capital.

However, another Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, spent over a month in Pakistan after he landed there to attend the marriage ceremony of his brother.

Another woman separatist Ms. Fareeda of Mass Movement, is leaving for Pakistan to participate in the wedding of her brother Mr. Bilal Beg, who is the chief of militant outfit J K Islamic Front. Relatives of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who are settled in Muzaffarabad, were also expected here today to attend a wedding. It was not known whether they were allowed to come.

The Mirwaiz himself is getting married to the daughter of a non- resident Kashmiri doctor settled in New York.

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