Hurriyat softens on poll, Govt prisoners

Each side had come to the meeting looking for gains that were symbolic more than substantive. In the end, both the Centre and the Hurriyat C...

Each side had come to the meeting looking for gains that were symbolic more than substantive. In the end, both the Centre and the Hurriyat Conference got all they could have hoped for.

Hurriyat gave indications that it may not call for boycott of Lok Sabha polls, after all. If so, this would be the first poll in recent memory to be held in the Valley without that shadow.

The government on its part, assured the Hurriyat that more prisoners would be released.

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The two sides also agreed to meet again for talks on ‘‘substantive issues’’— including the Kashmir problem — in June. ‘‘Hopefully, our government will be back,’’ added Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani with a smile. Incidentally, the next dialogue could coincide with the Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan in early June.

Nowhere was the thaw more evident than on the issue of elections. Even though Abdul Ghani Bhat maintained that polls were not a solution to the Kashmir problem, he hinted that his group might be willing to let the issue slide. ‘‘We are engaged in issues like the peace process which is so huge that we will have no time for other issues,’’ he said.

Pushed for a more direct answer, he said, ‘‘Leave it to our discretion.’’ Today’s meeting was termed more of a ‘‘review meeting’’ by both the sides — to review the developments following the first one in January 22. The issues closest to the Hurriyat heart — human rights violations by security forces, and release of prisoners — took most of the time.

On its part, the government granted some more concessions to the separatist group — agreeing to release of about a dozen more people in detention and speeding up the review of others. ‘‘It is an ongoing process,’’ Advani said. There were 533 persons in detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and included some Pakistanis. The DPM said that the government would also examine cases of those Kashmiris booked under POTA.