Rajnath Singh

Centre hardens stance

Hurriyat

With inputs from ANI

Muslim Clerics meet Rajnath Singh over Kashmir unrest

NEW DELHI: Members of an all-party delegation that went to Kashmir shouldn't have tried to meet Hurriyat members and those who raise slogans like 'Pakistan Zindabad,' said a delegation of Muslim clerics who met Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday, ANI reported.The clerics from the Barelvi school met with Rajnath to discuss the situation in Kashmir."Some people who went with the home minister to Kashmir went to meet separatists, they should not have done that. How can we talk to people who are raising 'Pakistan zindabad' slogans? We are very clear that we would not go at their doorstep only to be turned away by them, like they did to a handful of people recently," said Maulana Ansar Raza of the Garib Nawaz Foundation who led the delegation.On Sunday, Kashmiri separatists shut the door on members of the all-party delegation, literally, in some instances, as they went to meet them as part of efforts to end the two-month-long unrest in the Valley following Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani's killing. Sources said the separatists had reservations talking to the team aswas leading it."Why should we go to them? Kashmiri kahwa tou Dilli me bhi milta hai (Kashmiri kahwa is available in Delhi too)," Raza said. He called the members of all-party delegation who went to meet the Hurriyat leaders "chai khor".After the separatists' snub, on Monday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh expressed his displeasure at the separatists."I want to clarify that some members of the (all-party) delegation had gone to meet members of thein their individual capacity. The separatists did not say yes and they did not say no. The way they treated the members of the delegation can in no way be portrayed as Kashmiriyat, insaniyat (humanity) or democratic (jamhooriyat)," Rajnath said at a news conference in Srinagar on Monday.Further, on Tuesday, sources told TOI today that the Centre is considering curtailing perks like foreign trips, security and medical treatment, among other things, for the separatists, in what's being seen as hardening of the government's stance against militants.On Sunday, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, under house arrest since July, refused to meet Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Sharad Yadav and Jay Prakash Narayan when they went to his residence. Part of the Union home minister Rajnath Singh-led all-party delegation , the MPs had broken off to make the outreach.J&K Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik rebuffed the parliamentarians as well when they went to meet him at a police station, where he is under detention. He told them that he would talk to them when he visits Delhi. "You see the situation outside. What can we talk about in such a situation?" Malik was quoted as saying.Former moderate Hurriyat Conference chief Abdul Ghani Bhat welcomed the MPs but told them a decision had been taken to boycott them. Bhat called the visit a "futile exercise", saying nothing concrete would happen unless India talked to Pakistan.