Kashmiri separatist leaders put under house arrest, released abruptly

Five important developments on the issue

In what appeared to be a state of utter confusion on a crucial issue, three Kashmiri separatists were on Thursday first placed under house arrest in Srinagar, and then suddenly freed.

Continued house arrest would have stopped the separatists from travelling to Delhi for meeting Pakistan’s national security advisor Sartaj Aziz, who arrives in India on Sunday to hold talks on terror with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.

While hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was already under house arrest, similar restrictions had been placed for Mirwaiz Umer Farooq at his Nigeen residence, and for Abbas Ansari, who lives in Nawakadal, police and Hurriyat sources said. But now, all leaders except Geelani have been released. 

The separatists — Yasin Malik, Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq — have been invited to a reception hosted by the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on Sunday evening. The reception is likely to take place after talks between the two national security advisors, which, sources say, will convey India’s key concerns to the Pakistani government. Any meeting between the separatists and the Pakistani delegation before the talks is unacceptable to India. 

Here are some key developments on the issue:

1. The invitation to separatists was seen as a move to provoke India, but the Indian government said it would not be baited into cancelling the talks, which are to help resume a dialogue between the two countries after a year.

2. Last July, India had called off talks after Pakistan had consulted Kashmiri separatists before a meeting of foreign secretaries. A thaw was managed a year later, in July, at an unexpected meeting in Ufa, Russia, between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

3. The meeting over the coming weekend is meant to focus on terror and comes as Pakistani troops have fired across the border in Jammu & Kashmir, targeting civilians. There have also been two major terror attacks by Pakistanis in Punjab’s Gurdaspur and Udhampur in the Jammu region. Mohammad Naved, captured there, has revealed crucial information about training camps in Pakistan for training terrorists like him.

4. Reacting to the house arrest of the separatists, former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had tweeted: “I’ve never seen an Indo-Pak dialogue where both sides are so keen to sabotage it. India and Pakistan competing to give reasons to call off talks.”

5. Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of the Peoples Democratic Party, which co-governs the state with the Bharatiya Janata Party, also appeared critical of the action.