JKLF chairman Yasin Malik being arrested by Police ahead of his proposed meeting with Pakistan National Security Advisor (NSA) Sartaj Aziz in New Delhi in Srinagar on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)
Kashmiri separatists were placed under house arrest and released within two hours on Thursday as the government sent out a strong message that it would not allow them to meet with Pakistan's Sartaj Aziz, who is arriving in India for talks on Sunday. "If Sartaj Aziz wants to call off talks, so be it," sources told NDTV. Pakistan has firmly refused to cancel its invitation to the separatists.
Here are 10 developments in the story:
Top government sources described the detention and release of the separatists as "a signal that they cannot be a third party to talks."
The separatists, Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, have been invited to a reception in Delhi for Pakistan National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz, who will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.
Government sources have told NDTV that India will not allow the separatists to meet with Mr Aziz. Pakistan could meet the separatists in a separate room and sell it as a meeting, said sources, and New Delhi would not allow that.
Pakistan also hardened its stand, saying it had no official word from New Delhi and was firm on the meeting with separatists on Sunday evening.
In what could stir more trouble, foreign office spokesperson Qazi Khalilulah said Mr Aziz would "raise all issues including Kashmir."
"We will not be browbeaten on Kashmir. The so-called Indian red lines will not dictate Pakistan agenda," Pakistan government sources told NDTV.
Demonstrating an aggressive stance on Kashmir, Pakistan today also cancelled a Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference after refusing to invite the Jammu and Kashmir assembly speaker as demanded by India.
Pakistan's invite to separatists is seen as a move designed to provoke India, but the government has said it will not be baited into cancelling what is the first such dialogue between the two countries after a year.
Last July, India called off talks after Pakistan consulted Kashmiri separatists before a meeting of Foreign Secretaries. A year later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif met on the sidelines of a conference in Ufa, Russia, and agreed to restart talks as part of several breakthrough announcements.
The meeting between Ajit Doval and Sartaj Aziz on the weekend is meant to focus on terror and comes as Pakistani troops have fired across the border in Jammu and Kashmir, targeting civilians. There have also been two major terror attacks by Pakistanis in Punjab and Uddhampur in the Jammu region. Mohammad Naveed, captured there, has revealed crucial information to interrogators about training camps in Pakistan for terrorists like him.
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