-No major decision announced after first meeting between Modi, Kashmiri leaders since Aug 2019
DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: India’s prime minister held a crucial meeting with politicians from Occupied Kashmir on Thursday for the first time since New Delhi stripped the region’s semi-autonomy and jailed many of them in a crackdown.
No major decision was announced after the meeting and many Kashmiri leaders said they reiterated their demand that New Delhi should reverse its 2019 changes.
Modi chaired the meeting in New Delhi attended by the Himalayan region’s 14 political leaders, including Modi’s own party members. India’s powerful home minister, Amit Shah, and New Delhi’s administrator in the region, Manoj Sinha, also attended the meeting.
Among those invited were occupied Kashmir’s former three top elected officials: Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti, who was a regional coalition partner of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for nearly two years after the 2016 state elections.
The meeting, didn’t had any fixed agenda, however, Kashmiri leaders have indicated that they will press for restoration of Article 370 and full statehood.
“We will put our point of view in the meeting. The biggest thing what has been taken away from us should be given back to us,” said Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami, Communist Party of India leader and spokesperson for the five-party alliance, People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD).
In a meeting on Tuesday, PAGD decided to attend the meeting to be held at the PM’s residence at 3pm. All participants have been asked to submit negative Covid reports.
Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti arrived in Delhi on Wednesday afternoon and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah arrived in the Indian Capital on Thursday morning. “Omar Abdullah is already in New Delhi and he is also scheduled to attend the meeting,” said NC spokesman Imran Nabi.
Tarigami, Peoples Conference chairman Sajjad Lone, Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari, former deputy chief minister Muzuffar Beig, Congress J&K president Ghulam Ahmad Mir and former J&K deputy chief minister Tarachand also reached Delhi on
Wednesday. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief in IIOJK and former deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh has also arrived in Delhi.
“We (Congress leaders) will ask for agenda for this important meeting and then put our point of view before the PM,” said J&K Congress president, Ghulam Ahmad Mir.
The meeting signals the restarting of political engagement between Kashmiri parties and New Delhi, which in August 2019 voided post abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A that bestowed special status to Jammu and Kashmir and privileges to its residents, and split IIOJK into two Union territories.
All political leaders were detained, internet and phone connections were snapped and military siege were imposed in the territory.
