Snail pace on Kashmir can ignite Extremism: Attique
Pakistan Times Staff Report

RAWALPINDI: The President of the ruling All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference [AJKMC] Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan has warned that the current invisible slow pace on Kashmir in Pakistan-India Kashmir-related talks can throw an opportunity for the interplay of what he called ‘extremism’ in Kashmir.

It is therefore imperative that progress in these bilateral negotiations on Kashmir settlement efforts should be made quite visible to the people, he added.

In an interview, covering latest aspects of Kashmir imbroglio here, the Muslim Conference chief, feeling optimistic about his own ascending role in near future power portals, called upon the Indian occupation army in India held-Kashmir to help its (Indian) political leadership at this juncture of Pakistan-India talks on Kashmir so that the negotiation process could gain a ‘demonstrable’ and visible progress.

‘The key role in making progress on Kashmir-centric Pakistan-India talks is that of the occupying Indian army in held Kashmir’, he pointed out.

Sardar Attique, who is also Chairman of AJK Assembly Public Accounts Committee said: ‘In Pakistan there is complete unanimity of vision and approach between the army and the political leadership on the issue of Kashmir and over talks with India. Both stand united on this vital point. However there is a genuine and urgent need that the Indian army should also help the Indian political leadership if progress towards settlement of the Kashmir dispute is to be made visible. The current slow pace in Indo-Pakistan talks on Kashmir can pave the way for an active extremism in Kashmir’.

Asked to explain his argument of an Indian-army-factor in a peaceful search for Kashmir solution, Sardar Attique Ahmad replied: ‘Indian parliament through legislation has given some extraordinary ‘aggressive’ powers to the Indian army in
its suppressive ‘role’ in occupied Kashmir. So much so that the Indian army is using quite unconventional methods in Kashmir in suppressing the masses there.

India is also a conventional army but it resorts to unconventional tactics in occupied territory today. Unless that army cooperates and helps its (Indian) political leadership visible progress on Kashmir in Indo-Pakistan talks won’t emerge. Therefore I appeal to the Indian army to help its political leadership.

The present slow pace can pave the way for extremism in Kashmir’. Attique’s observations amply show that the Indian army is not accommodating the viewpoint of Singh’s government in India. That is why in his interview he stressed again and again the need of Indian occupying army’s cooperation with its political leadership in Delhi if a genuine solution to Kashmir dispute with Pakistan is to be achieved through talks.

This observation by Attique also shows Indian government’s domestic disagreement on any negotiated Kashmir approach with Pakistan, predicting no hopeful headway in future on this core issue.

Sardar Attique said that in Kashmir the existing ‘restraint’ is subject to a visible progress on Kashmir in the peace talks. If this ongoing peace process comes to a halt, then a full-blast ‘extremism’ can come into play there he warned, urging leaderships of both India and Pakistan that in every bilateral meeting (between Pakistan and India) there must emerge certain move forward on Kashmir which should also be observable by the people.

He stressed opening of more trans-Kashmir civil travels and trade routes. Replying another question regarding the ongoing Kasuri-Natwar Singh negotiations in Islamabad, he appealed to them to ensure restoration of full civic life in Indian held-Kashmir such as urgent withdrawal of Indian occupation army from civil population concentrations back to the barracks, termination of suppression of human rights in occupied Kashmir and removal of what he called all impediments in the way of peace process.

But he did not further elaborate the impediments and said that the parties concerned already know them all.

Commenting on the prevailing political regional scenario the Muslim Conference chief observed that the first, second and the third rank political leadership in both India and Pakistan was faced with severe crisis. There is a great need of demonstrating future vision and imagination in the region on the part of political platforms in each country, he added.

There is no need to be the prisoners of fixtures. Our ideologies are very much pronounced and unambiguous, he explained. Replying another point he said that those who criticise the recently concludd two-day Kashmir conference in Delhi, the first in 58 years among Kashmiris from both parts of the State, were firing their criticism out of personal prejudices minus political merit. Everybody should see through the facts and demands of logic and truth. Beyond that it is only a personal whim. Everyone is aware of our historic and ideological role. It needs no coxing and cajoling. Ours is an open book of history, he stressed.

Replying to another question he said that his party All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference has its ideological and historic ties with the Pakistan Muslim League.

"My party will take part in the PML centenary celebrations country-wide, he added. He described the Muzaffarabad city electoral victory of his party nominee as a barometer win. It reflects our future victories in coming general elections in June 2006 in AJK. We won this election even from the electoral sites which had never before in the past polled in our favour. This was due to our political fraternisation", he observed.

Later in the evening addressing a reception given by him in honour of British MP Shahid Malik in an Islamabad hotel Sardar Attique urged overseas Kashmiris and Pakistanis to fully integrate themselves in societies of their host countries and try to earn good name for Pakistan as do other communities.●