Track 2 meet derailed, Delhi says no to visas

Official sources in New Delhi said ‘‘for all such seminars inviting participants from neighbouring countries, certain procedures have to be followed for clearance.

In this case, these had not been completed and therefore clearance for issuing of visas was not available with the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.’’ This is being seen as a direct fallout of the latest Jammu massacre.

The two-day long closed-door discussions were to be held in Chandigarh on July 23, as part of a series of similar seminars. This had been preceded by two separate, important meetings held in Dubai and Chandigarh in April.

The Dubai conference was attended by the chief of Pakistan’s Kashmir Committee, Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan besides Hurriyat’s moderate heavyweights Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone and a galaxy of separatist leaders from Britain, US and Canada.

The Chandigarh seminar held earlier was attended by former Pakistan foreign secretary Najam-ud-din Sheikh and the high-profile member of Musharraf’s Kashmir Committee, Nasim Zehra, besides a few important Kashmiri separatist leaders, like the Peoples League leader Khalil Ahmad Khalil, who represents the outfit in the seven-member Hurriyat executive.

The Irish ambassador in India, the principal secretary to Indira Gandhi, Prof P N Dhar, Matin Zuberi, Amitabh Mattoo of JNU and former Indian ambassador to China, C S Dasgupta, were also present.

The Dubai conference had generated a lot of controversy in Kashmir after it called for an immediate end to militant violence and stressed peaceful political means for achieving a settlement on Kashmir.

At the Chandigarh meeting, the participation of the two Pakistanis believed to be close to the Musharraf regime and a proposal by former PL leader G M Naiku to stop the insurgent movement and get a commitment from both countries that they would resolve the dispute bilaterally within a mutually agreed time-frame were considered to be important developments.

The two meetings were also considered to be important milestones for their other agenda: encouraging formation of a broad Kashmiri separatist forum with representation from either side of the Line of Control.

The Dubai tremors were immediately felt in Kashmir and many believe that this could have provoked Lone’s assassination.

This time a few more separatist leaders like Shabir Shah were expected to take part in these unofficial deliberations. Sources reveal that the organisers had invited two more journalists from Pakistan — Farhan Bokhari and Khalid Mehmood — besides Zehra to widen the scope of the discussions.