3 more killed in fresh violence in Kashmir

Geelani not to talk to all-party team

With the latest casualties, the death toll in the Valley reached 103, of which 100 were killed in Kashmir and three in the Mendhar area of the Jammu region.

While most of the shops and business establishments remained closed, small grocery stores selling food items, chemist and vegetable shops witnessed a huge rush.
In the old city, where curfew was relaxed, hardly any shop  opened. Youth held demonstrations and threw stones at security forces.
The police fired in the air, burst smoke shells and resorted to cane charge, forcing the authorities to reimpose curfew.

As violence raged, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairman of the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference, ruled out talks with the all-party delegation visiting Kashmir from Monday.
Geelani said the delegation has the mandate to hold dialogue only within the Indian Constitution. “We are not ready for such talks. We have decided not to meet the delegation and not to talk to them,”he said.

He alleged that the Centre was  not adopting a realistic approach to talks. “This is the reason for the failure of hundreds of rounds of talks between New Delhi and Srinagar and New Delhi and Islamabad since 1947,” he said.
Geelani said he was not against dialogue but the Government of India must accept his five conditions first.

These included declaring Kashmir a disputed territory by the Centre, demilitarisation and release of political prisoners, including Afzal Guru, awarded death sentence in the Parliament attack case.

He has also changed his protest programme outside security camps on Tuesday. He appealed to the people to hold protests at district and tehsil headquarters on that day.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chairman of the moderate faction of Hurriyat, said that he had not received any invitation for talks with the all-party delegation. But sources close to him said that he would not join the talks even if he was formally invited.
DH News Service

Pakistan again flays India
 Pakistan again criticised the handling of protests in Jammu and Kashmir, saying India should introspect on its policies instead of blaming Islamabad for the violence in the Valley, PTI reports from Islamabad.
Reacting to India’s rejection of concerns expressed by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the situation in J&K, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit on Saturday said India “should adhere to accepted human rights standards rather than stereotypically blaming Pakistan.”  Kashmir is an “international dispute” and the “subject of several UN Security Council resolutions,” he added.