Hurriyat leaders call on Sonia

Failing to make any breakthrough with the Centre on the Kashmir issue, Hurriyat Conference leaders on Saturday met Congress president and Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi and complained of harassment by the BJP-led NDA government.

A two-member delegation comprising former Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik spent nearly 40 minutes with Gandhi and briefed her about the situation in the state.

The Congress is a major partner in the PDP-led Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government in J&K. This is the first meeting between Gandhi and Hurriyat leaders, particularly after the new government came into being in Srinagar.

It is also the Hurriyat's first attempt at wider political consultations on the Kashmir problem and hence, would be watched carefully in the valley.

The two leaders had recently met former prime minister V P Singh and are planning to meet CPI-M leader Somnath Chatterjee and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Emerging out of the 30-minute meeting, senior party leader Manmohan Singh told reporters that the Hurriyat leaders had a general discussion with Gandhi and placed their views before her.

The two Hurriyat leaders, however, avoided mediapersons waiting outside Gandhi's residence.

But sources said the delegation apprised her about the banning of some religious institutions in the valley, including madrasas.

The Hurriyat delegation, which is in the capital to hold consultations with diplomats on the possibility of a solution to the Kashmir problem on the pattern of the Irish peace process, is believed to have conveyed to the Congress president that the secular face of the country's polity had taken a beating after the BJP-led government came to power at the Centre.