The Hurriyat held a closed-door ‘‘informal’’ executive council meeting here today as part of its pre-talks exercise. The meeting comes three days after the Centre’s representative, Wajahat Habibullah, met the chairman of the amalgam, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.No statement was, however, issued to the press, a policy followed doggedly for quite some time now by the senior leaders. Journalists waiting outside Mirwaiz’s residence got only a brief glimpse of the leaders as they hurriedly left the venue. Strict instructions had been issued to even the General Council members to not speak to the media. Several attempts were made to contact Mirwaiz, but he did not answer his phone. Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, too, proved elusive, having left home to attend a ‘‘wedding’’. ‘‘We are not talking to the media as a matter of policy,’’ one executive council member told The Indian Express on the strict condition of anonymity. The meeting, he said, was held to fine-tune strategy for the dialogue. He said the Hurriyat will convene a meeting of its general council—tentatively on Thursday—to hold ‘‘serious discussions’’ on the talks. The amalgam got a shot in the arm today with Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement—a constituent of the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani deciding to join it. The party, led by G M Mir—now detained under the Public Safety Act—was a general council member of the undivided Hurriyat, and had lent support to Geelani after the conglomerate split about two years back. There were also reports of the Anjuman-e-Sharie Shiyaan of Aga Syed Hassan joining the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat.
