Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Geelani on Wednesday said that the Kashmir "movement" doesn't require guns and stressed for a peaceful struggle to achieve the political goal. He also distanced himself from Pakistan and called for an indigenous struggle. "Our struggle would be peaceful. Peaceful. We neither need the gun of the Mujahideen now, nor the support of Pakistan or its media," Geelani said. Geelani's call for a peaceful "struggle" is a departure from his rigid stand as the hardline separatist leader who had been vociferously advocating the role of guns in Kashmir. Addressing a public rally at Jamia Masjid at Srinagar, Geelani said, "our peaceful struggle would continue till Indian military occupation ends. When I say peaceful, I say it with full consciousness." The Hurriyat chairman thanked the youth of Kashmir valley for their peaceful protests against the forestland transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB). "The youth played a positive role (in these protests)," he said. The aged separatist leader, who advocates Kashmir's accession to Pakistan, didn't stop here. He distanced himself from Pakistan and called for an indigenous "movement to free" Kashmir. "We should not depend on Pakistan. The black-out of Kashmir protests by Pakistan's print and electronic media and the silence of the Pakistan Government rejects the notion that this movement follows the diktats of Pakistan," Geelani said.Geelani, sources say, was buoyed by the massive public protests in the Valley against the forestland transfer, where tens of thousands of people took to the streets. The protests, in fact, spiraled into separatist rallies with protestors raising pro-freedom slogans. Since the massive protests forced the J-K Government to rescind its cabinet order transferring land to the Shrine Board, Geelani sees it as a viable means in the post 9/11 scenario. "We have to tell the world community that India isn't fighting an armed resistance here but is trying to suppress a public movement by force. We have to attract the attention of the world community towards this," he said.
