Moderate Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Lone’s assassination in Srinagar may force the US to play a proactive role in helping solve the Kashmir dispute. The Bush administration, fearing Kashmir might take over from West Asia as the ‘‘most dangerous place on earth’’, may now be forced to abandon its ‘‘even handed’’ response to the India-Pakistan standoff, US and New Delhi analysts said. The US may reiterate the LoC’s inviolability. As Lone’s son, Sajjad, blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the murder, a Pakistan High Commission press release here used it to slam the ‘‘continuing reign of terror unleashed by occupying forces in India-held Kashmir for the last 12 years’’. Sajjad’s remarks today echoed what his father, along with Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, had recently said: Pakistan should end its support to violence in Kashmir. Seated beside Sardar Abdul Qayoom of Pakistan’s National Kashmir Committee at a press conference in Dubai about six weeks ago, Lone had denounced the ‘‘violence in Kashmir’’. He had demanded that violence should end and a ‘‘peaceful resolution’’ should be found to the crisis. The Mirwaiz too was with Lone in Dubai. Other than Sardar Qayoom, they met Pakistani Hurriyat leader Sayid Yousuf Naseem. Kashmiris Nazir Gilani from London and Mushtaq Gilani from Canada too were there. Speculations at the time hinted at US blessings for or sponsorship of the secret Dubai conclave. Lone had gone on to Washington — where he reportedly met a US State Department functionary — and Tampa, Florida, for medical treatment. The Mirwaiz had returned to Kashmir. Diplomatic sources here said the US had in recent years been pushing Kashmiris from both sides to talk to each other. Officially, the US stand on Kashmir says the dispute must be resolved by India and Pakistan, in ‘‘accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people’’. On the eve of PM A.B. Vajpayee’s ‘‘insaniyat’’ speech in August 2000 — where he said: ‘‘We are willing to talk to the Kashmiris within the Constitution of ‘insaniyat’’’ — Kashmiri leaders from both sides had met at another Gulf destination. The PM’s speech was a follow up to that meeting, which had US blessings. Sources emphasised today that the US had come a long way from 1993, when then Assistant Secretary for South Asia Robin Raphel had said Washington never accepted Kashmir’s Instrument of Accession to India.
