SRINAGAR: The government is learnt to have stepped up its effort to persuade incarcerated Kashmiri leaders to shun confrontation over the Centre’s stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and splitting the state into two Union Territories (UTs) and become part of proposed political process aimed at salvaging the Himalayan region from the present crisis and work towards its inclusive growth.
But, so far, none of the key faces of the Valley’s mainstream camp is reported to have agreed to budge or change his or her stance on the vital issues. Sources said that former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have reiterated their demand that the Centre should revoke its contentious decisions and restore J&K’s pre-August 5 constitutional and organisational positions. People’s Conference (PC) leader and former minister Sajad Gani Lone has been equally “disinclined”, the sources said.
Another former chief minister and leader of J&K’s oldest political party National Conference (NC) Farooq Abdullah has “categorically refused” to talk to any government representative on the matter, the party sources claimed. SeniorAbdullah was on September 16 formally detained under J&K’s stringent Public Safety Act (PSA). The family sources said that when the detention order was served on him by a visiting senior government official at his Gupkar Road residence here, the NC president had reacted by saying “India will regret this”.
Sources said that some government officials and those from the country’s premier intelligence agencies have also been trying to convince the second-rung leaders of the NC and other mainstream political parties including People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and PC on the urgency of their lending a hand to the reconciliatory venture “in the interest of the people”. Except for a few “encouraging” voices, the overall response from them has not been any sanguine, the sources said.
In this backdrop, it is doubtful that these leaders would be released in near future. Union minister Jitendra Singh had on Sunday said that the Kashmiri politicians detained following the abrogation of Article 370 will not be kept in confinement for more than eighteen months. He, however, also said that the leaders were not arrested as such but were living as “house guests” and were even provided with CDs of Hollywood movies and bread of their choices.
While Farooq Abdullah is detained at his residence which has been declared as a ‘subsidiary jail’, his son Omar Abdullah is lodged at the nearby government guest-house Hari Niwas. Ms. Mufti is detained at a tourism cottage at Chashmashahi on the foothills of Zabarwan here. The other leaders and prominent activists of various mainstream parties have been incarcerated at Centaur Lakeview Hotel on the banks of Dal Lake. About half a dozen second-rung leaders of these parties were, however, allowed to go home earlier this month. While one of them was released on health grounds, another was sent home following the death of his brother. Four others are reported to have secured their release after assuring the authorities in writing or verbally that they will not indulge in any activities that could disturb peace in the Valley.
