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Sushma Swaraj, who is part of an all-party delegation currently visiting Jammu and Kashmir, visited the shrine along with other delegates in the morning. “I prayed at the shrine for the return of peace in Jammu and Kashmir,” she told journalists. The Holy relic of Prophet Mohammad is in the shrine.
It was on July 11, 2,000, that Atal Behari Vajpayee, the then prime minister, visited the Hazratbal shrine. On that day Begum Akbar Jehan, mother of then chief minister and now Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah, passed away. Vajpayee and the then Union home minister, L K Advani, had reached here to attend the Begum’s funeral.
This was the time when the NDA government at the Centre had rejected the autonomy resolution sent by the National Conference government. Abdullah and his party, the National Conference (NC), were hurt by the Centre’s stand.
The visit of Vajpayee also paved way for starting talks between the Centre and the NC on autonomy which finally got deadlocked. The senior BJP leader also visited the grave of Begum Jehan, located near the Hazratbal shrine. After the funeral, the then prime minister visited Hazratbal shrine and invited NC leaders for talks to New Delhi. The Hazrabal shrine is politically very important for Kashmir.