Parliamentarians, civil society members meet Mirwaiz
December 4th, 2010 - 4:27 pm ICT by IANS
Srinagar, Dec 4 (IANS) A 10-member parliamentarian and civil society delegation on a three-day visit to the Kashmir Valley Saturday called on moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.
The delegation comprising parliamentarians and prominent citizens, including Ram Vilas Paswan, D. Raja, Nageshwara Rao, journalist Seema Mustafa, film maker Mahesh Bhatt and others, arrived Friday on a “fact finding mission” to the valley.
“We are not here on any political mission other than finding out the facts. We have met some separatist politicians, members of the local civil society and mainstream politicians,” Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja told reporters.
“We shall be meeting others today and tomorrow. We want to find out the facts for ourselves so that the same can be projected in the right perspective when we go back,” Raja said after meeting the father of 11-year-old Tufail Mattoo who was killed June 11 after being hit by a tear smoke shell in Srinagar’s old city.
Friday evening, Muhammad Yasin Malik, chairman of the pro-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) hosted a dinner for the delegation members at the JKLF headquarters in uptown Maisuma locality here.
The delegation is likely to meet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah before they wound up their visit to Kashmir.
The delegation members are being hosted for dinner Saturday by Bilal Gani Lone of the People’s Conference which is a constituent of the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat group.
The delegation has been drawn by the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Analysis (CPA), comprising members of seven political parties and three civil society members.
The parliamentary-civil society team, including Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan and CPI’s D. Raja, arrived here Friday on a three-day visit.
The delegation also comprises Shoaib Iqbal of the LJP, Gopal Choudhary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Namo Nageshwar Rao of the Telugu Desam Party, Danish Ali of the Janta Dal-Secular, Maheshwar Hazari of the Janata Dal-United, Shahid Siddiqui of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, journalist Seema Mustafa and academician Kamal Chenoy.
Since June 11, 110 people have lost their lives in the valley in fierce clashes between the protesters and the security forces.
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Tags: azadi, bilal, communist party of india, communist party of india marxist, delegation members, fact finding mission, film maker, gani, hurriyat leader, jklf, kashmir valley, liberation front, mattoo, parliamentarian, parliamentarians, ram vilas paswan, society members, telugu desam party, umer, vilas