In a surprise move which at the least can be described as eating humble pie, the Hurriyat Conference faction led by Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has revoked its earlier decision of suspending Jammu and Kashmir Itehad-ul-Muslimeen, one of the founding constituents of the conglomerate, over its leader’s holding a meeting with the Centre’s interlocutors in April this year.
The unexpected meeting between the interlocutors and prominent separatist leader and Shia cleric Maulana Abbas Ansari, who is the patron of the Itehad on April 20, had set off a sort of crisis in the Hurriyat Conference faction, as many within saw it as being “underhand” and rejected his pleas that it was “unplanned”.
Hurriyat Conference faction chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq had immediately suspended the Itehad, saying that though the party was represented in the conglomerate by Maulana Abbas’s son, Maulana Masroor Abbas, the party patron should not have violated the decision on the issue of meeting the interlocutors appointed by the Centre, unanimously taken at an earlier meeting of the Hurriyat Conference.
The Itehad and its patron were asked to repent, which they refused.
The 76-year-old cleric and politician even publicly said he felt relieved at the decision and that the Itehad was “comfortable” at being outside the Hurriyat Conference.
Maulana Abbas had admitted meeting interlocutors Dileep Padgaonkar, Prof. Radha Kumar and M.M. Ansari at his Srinagar residence but claimed that he only served tea to the visitors and did not discuss anything with them in recognition of the Hurriyat Conference’s decision.
Later, the Hurriyat Conference faction set up a two-member committee to review the decision.
At a series of meetings it had with the Itehad leadership, Maulana Abbas maintained the interlocutors had actually arrived at his doorstep unexpectedly and the meeting had not been scheduled.
He also insisted, “I can’t shut my doors on visitors. But in deference to the Islamic practice of virtue and disposition and Kashmir’s traditional warm hospitality, I served them tea but, at the same time, put across the Hurriyat Conference’s decision with regard to holding talks with them.”
After the decision to suspend the Itehad was revoked in the light of the committee’s report, the Hurriyat Conference faction said it expects all its constituents to fulfil their responsibility of upholding the decisions that are taken unanimously in future.
The Itehad-ul-Muslimeen is yet to react.