Delhi okays cell roaming, fixes Hurriyat date

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf may have underlined the K word several times at the India Today Conclave tonight but New Delhi t...

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf may have underlined the K word several times at the India Today Conclave tonight but New Delhi took Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s peace initiative a step forward by allowing roaming facility on mobile phones for Pakistan for increasing people-to-people contact. Kashmir was also on New Delhi’s mind when the Home Ministry on Friday wrote to the All Party Hurriyat Conference, inviting them for the second round of talks with DPM L K Advani on March 27.

It is learnt that the decision to extend the roaming facility to Pakistan was taken after a green signal from the PMO and Advani. Authoritative sources indicate that keen to push the process of confidence-building measures, New Delhi was even willing to open the roaming facility for Pakistan for a few weeks to test the waters despite reservations of security agencies. Advani gave the final go-ahead yesterday on his yatra.

The decision to extend this facility on an experimental basis for at least three months was taken lest it be interpreted to benefit the Indian cricket fans in Pakistan.

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However, Communications and IT Minister Arun Shourie has gone on record saying that the facility would be operational with immediate effect, allowed for four months and will be reviewed on June 15. Shourie said that the roaming facility would not be extended to Jammu and Kashmir and North-Eastern regions. But this has more to do with mobile infrastructure in those states.

New Delhi’s decision was taken on a clear understanding that there was no point in controlling the mobile facility as people from India and Pakistan have other ways to contact each other in the tech-savvy environment. Even an apprehension that the roaming facility for Pakistan would help the “satta” operators did not stop New Delhi from giving the go-ahead.

The Centre has also invited the Hurriyat for the second round of dialogue. It is understood that the dialogue will be used to allay Hurriyat’s fear over their complaints of rights violations and release of political detenues. A total of 64 political detenues have been released by the state this year with 12 being released this month. The Centre, on its part, would ask the Hurriyat to initiate talks with the Kashmiri Pandits both within and outside the Valley.

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