Srinagar, Sept. 21: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj, member of the all-party delegation on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, said the decision to meet separatist leaders in the valley in groups was not a collective one.
The leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said the matter was not discussed in the meeting of the delegation, led by home minister P. Chidambaram.
She told reporters here, some delegates had expressed the desire to meet the separatist leaders.
"That was their personal decision, not a decision of the delegation. If some people want to go, we cannot stop them. But we decided not to go," Swaraj said.
After Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) refused to meet the all-party delegation that flew in from New Delhi, the visiting politicians broke into small groups and met the three prominent faces of the two decades old separatist movement.