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Hurriyat keeps Jamaat out of executive meeting

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

For the first time since its constitution in 1993, the separatist All-Parties Hurriyat Conference has excluded the pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami from its executive council meeting slated for Monday.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the Jamaat representative on APHC, has been in the centre of a controversy and the Hurriyat chairman had sought his recall from the executive council for making public statements which went against the Hurriyat's collective decisions.

In the eight years of its existence, the APHC has not met once wherein the Jamaat was not represented.

Geelani confirmed at a press conference at the Jamaat headquarters at Batmalu on Monday afternoon that "we have not been invited for Monday's executive meeting".

He said his party had already made it clear that in the larger interests of the ongoing struggle in Kashmir, "I will continue to represent the Jamaat on the APHC executive."

"We have no problem about it [our exclusion]," Geelani, who chose to shrug off the move, said. "We are not bothered. It is the problem of the Hurriyat chairman."

Did he see the move as a pre-cursor to the Jamaat's expulsion from the Hurriyat? "Let them meet and decide on that," replied Geelani. "Whatever their decision is, the shoura will meet and discuss it and arrive at a decision."

The Hurriyat executive is meeting to discuss the latest situation in Kashmir and to react to the statements of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Union Home Minister L K Advani's pertaining to Kashmir -- and also discuss the Jamaat's refusal to recall Geelani.

Earlier, in a meeting in February the Jamaat had noted: "The Jamaat is too big and strong a party to be expelled from the Hurriyat Conference. By doing so, the Hurriyat will lose its credibility. Even if it happens, a parallel political platform shall be formed."

Responding to Annan's statement that the UN did not have any role in Kashmir, Geelani said it was the responsibility of the UN to implements its resolutions on Kashmir.

The Kashmir Cease-Fire: The Complete Coverage

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