Hurriyat factions come together for Pak event

SRINAGAR: A picture is worth a thousand words, and many thousands shall be spent decoding the Hurriyat Conference\'s new-found unity. After a gap of many years, leaders of the different factions of the separatist outfit were present to offer their salutes at the Pakistan high commission. From hardline pro-Pakistan leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani to Shabir Shah and the moderates, the entire Hurriyat was in Delhi for the Pakistan Day function on the lawns of the embassy in New Delhi.



In Delhi, this shall be read in a number of ways. Is this new-found unity a sign of a new effort by Pakistan to bring on board the Hurriyat about a possible deal with India? Is this new-found maturity a precursor to a new approach by the separatists? Or is it that at the March 23 event, where moderates sulked and Geelani preened, was just a temporary truce? All these possibilities shall all be explored and pondered over. A thousand miles away, in a smelly ward of a hospital in Srinagar, Arif Hussain wonders who cares for him. Like 20 other people, he was caught in the blast that ripped through a busy market in Bijbehara on Thursday. The police are still unclear about why 27-year-old Mohammad Abbas was driving a stolen car laden with explosives. So are his parents who buried his remains. Was it a terror attack or not?



Only two things stand out. First, that ordinary Kashmiris were targeted yet again. Second, the deafening silence of the party-going leadership that claims to fight for the Kashmiri people. The Hurriyat moderates and separatists alike claim a belief in \"peaceful struggle\". But not one of them took time to visit the kin of the dead or the maimed of the Bijbehara blast. No strike was called; no courting of arrest. The reason is simple. It looks most likely a terror attack. For all the speeches on human rights and dignity, for all the conferences in Delhi and Geneva, the thousands of Kashmiris killed by militants do not merit even a footnote in the struggle Hurriyat leads. The police probe shall tell us what happened on Thursday. What we\'ll never know is why the Hurriyat chooses to stay silent when militants kill Kashmiris. In Srinagar, they shall issue statements about budgets and bullets and road accidents. But when it comes to Hafeez Saeed and the Jihad Council, the Hurriyat is busy attending dinners
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