Professor Abdul Gani Bhatt took strong offence to the use of term separtist for Kashmiri leader Sajjad Lone. Lone is contesting elections from Baramula parliamentary constituency " Why call him a sepratist? If you want to give name to him he is a fellow Kashmiri who is trying his luck in elections. If you want to give him a name you could call him nationalist," Dr Bhatt argued Sajjad Lone was called a sepratist.
Bhatt said that such words were used to refer to them by people who wanted to make stories out of nothing. "To my mind Mushraff was far more serious in solving the Kashmir problem and together with Dr Singh, he would have gone down as a man who changed the course of history", Bhatt said.
Bhatt clarified that Sajjad was not a part of the All Party Hurriyat Conference which was headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. Bhatt repeated that the APHC said it was time for India, Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir to get together and solve the problem.
"Giving Pakistan a locus standi is internationalising the issue. Our line is clear that Jammu and Kashmir is an internal part of India," Dr Ajay Churungu told rediff.com on Friday.
India Votes 2009