NEW DELHI - New Delhi will be the new turf for Kashmiri leaders - and they predict that they would be attacked in the Capital, reported MSN India.
Moderate Kashmiri leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has said the Hurriyat was seriously considering opening offices in New Delhi and Islamabad.
“We know our office in New Delhi will be attacked. We know there will be problems but we are seriously thinking that we should open an office in New Delhi on the pattern of the Kashmir Awareness Bureau. In fact, we had an office in Delhi called the Kashmir Awareness Bureau but it was closed.
We are thinking of reviving it,” the Mirwaiz said. In 2003, the Hurriyat Conference closed the office in New Delhi after the arrests of Delhi-based Hurriyat spokesman Shabir Ahmad and Hurriyat leader Anjum Zamrooda Habib on charges of acting as conduits for facilitating the flow of funds to freedom fighters in the held valley.
“There is a need to inform mainstream people in New Delhi that Kashmir is a political problem and that it has an economic dimension. A perception has been created that the entire Kashmir issue has been created by Pakistan and everything, even protests against human rights violations, are being abetted by Pakistan. The uprisings of 2008, 2009 and 2010 are also viewed as such. We need to correct this perception,” the Mirwaiz said. Political issue apart, the Kashmir problem also has an economic dimension, Mirwaiz said. “There is the issue of exploitation of our water resources and related economic issues,” he added.
The Mirwaiz, who returned to Held Kashmir after a week-long visit to Delhi, will return to the Capital next week.
“It is not that we have shifted base to New Delhi. We want to make diplomats and political leaders aware about the political and economic dimension of the Kashmir issue and its impact on the region,” the Mirwaiz said.