Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf asked Hurriyat Conference to start a dialogue with India to get concessions. This was apparently because Pakistan was not in a position to use military power to change the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir, state governor Satya Pal Malik told Hindustan Times in an interview.
Malik said Musharraf told Kashmiri separatists leaders that he won't be able to alter the Line of Control (LoC) and neither country can afford a war on the issue and it was better if they negotiate concessions, including the free movement for Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC.
Malik, who took over reins as the governor on August 23 and is the first career politician in the seat in the last five decades, said the Hurriyat was a puppet in Pakistan's hands. The state has been under Governor's rule since June when the BJP withdrew support to People's Democratic Party.
Malik said the Hurriyat Conference does have some influence in the Kashmir Valley but it was afraid of Pakistan and the terrorists and as a result was caught in a web.
"The government will only talk to them if they take an independent stand without getting influenced by Pakistan," Malik said.
Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq acknowledged that Musharraf had discussed with them a four-point formula. The strategy included demilitarisation and free movement across the LoC but he took exception to Malik's statement calling them puppets. Mirwaiz said his statements are a furtherance of India's mischief of twisting facts to undermine the disputed nature of Kashmir.
"All governors want us to abandon everything. They don't want to talk to us about independence or autonomy and now they don't want us to talk to or about Pakistan," Mirwaiz said.
The Centre has tried to bring the Hurriyat to the negotiating table. The last time they held talks with the government was during the tenure of Atal Behari Vajpayee.
When Manmohan Singh was the prime minister, backchannel talks came up with the four-point formula – demilitarisation; maintain status quo of LoC and allowing free movement of Kashmiris across it; self-governance without independence; A joint India-Pakistan supervision mechanism in place in J&K.
During secret negotiations in 2007 Pakistan had agreed to abandon its demand of implementing a UN resolution for a referendum and not redrawing of the state's border and an agreement was on the verge of being signed but internal turmoil in Pakistan, which led to Musharraf's removal, put it on the backburner.
