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Hurriyat to form poll panel
By Shujaat Bukhari
JAMMU, JAN. 28. The All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) today took a surprising decision of ``holding elections in Jammu and Kashmir to elect the real representatives of people for holding trilateral talks on Kashmir''. The ``Election Commission would be announced shortly by a committee constituted for the purpose.''
After a marathon meeting of the APHC executive which met in Srinagar to discuss the possibilities of participating in the elections, a statement released to the press said ``In order to honour the sentiments of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and do away with the confusion being created by different forces, the Hurriyat Conference has decided to constitute an independent, impartial and honest
Election Commission so that the real representatives of the people of the State are chosen out of a credible democratic process, who can be part of a trilateral dialogue on resolving the Kashmir issue.''
The Hurriyat spokesman said the elections could be held in three phases in the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh and ``Azad Kashmir''.
For constituting the commission, a panel has been set up which will submit its report in the coming days, the statement said hoping that both India and Pakistan would support this move and not create hurdles in it. Asked about the shape of the commission, the senior executive member, Mohammad Yaseen Malik, said ``It is open to all and even Farooq Abdullah can contest''.
Giving details of the meeting, the spokesman said the situation which had arisen after the September 11 attacks and subsequent developments were discussed threadbare in the executive in which all the members took part.
The meeting, chaired by Abdul Gani Bhat, observed that all over the world the Hurriyat's stand had been seconded with a view that all the disputed issues need to be resolved through dialogue. So in this context, resolution of the Kashmir issue had become unavoidable.
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