Abdullah confident of talks with other groups

By Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR, AUG. 9 The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, believes that the withdrawal of ceasefire by the Hizbul Mujahideen is not the end of the game and is confident that some groups will come for talks.

Accusing Pakistan for scuttling the peace process, Dr. Abdullah told mediapersons after attending a function at the BSF training centre, ``process of talks will not come to an end. I am confident that some group will come and talk.''

``(The Hizbul leader) Salahuddin is under the thumb of Pakistan and has withdrawn the ceasefire under its pressure. He has to act as per Pakistan's direction,'' he said. But, there was no scope for talks with Pakistan unless it ended trans-border terrorism.

Dr. Abdullah said the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, had made it clear that he believed in talks within the framework of ``insaniyat''(humaneness). But there was not much difference in the situation even after the ceasefire announcement.

``Even when we were talking with them last week the Pahalgam carnage was engineered. Nothing is going to change overnight,'' he said, adding,``one should remember that there is not only one Hizbul Mujahideen outfit... many other outfits are operating here.''

It was not possible to talk to Pakistan when it was killing our people, sending lethal weapons, grenades, bombs and destroying our economy by printing fake currency. ``If Pakistan wants friendship with India it has to stop all this first'', the Chief Minister said and added that it was the misfortune of Kashmiris that whenever there was a hope of restoring peace, something went wrong.

On the Pahalgam carnage, Dr. Abdullah said a probe had already been ordered and if people felt it was incomplete a judicial inquiry could be ordered. ``We are not opposed to it. We do not want to hide anything.''

Hurriyat tightlipped

The All-Party Hurriyat Conference has maintained an enigmatic silence over the developments taking place since Tuesday evening. The APHC executive had a marathon meeting at its headquarters but the members refused to talk to the media. Prof. Abdul Gani Butt said, ``we have decided in the meeting to offer no comments.'' He also refused to divulge when the next meeting would take place. Sources, however, said, ``there is something big in the offing.''

Prof. Butt did not deny or confirm whether the Hurriyat had sought an explanation from Mr. Fazl Haq Qureshi on his role as a mediator between the Centre and the Hizbul Mujahideen.

Mr. Qureshi's People's Political Front (PPF) joined the Hurriyat Conference recently.

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