‘Stop the use of force in Kashmir’: Saifuddin Soz

Srinagar: Pitching for a “political dialogue” with the separatists, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Professor Saifuddin Soz on Monday said that India should stop the use of force in Kashmir without any further delay.

“It can never ever produce positive results,” Soz said in a statement.

“Soon after his arrival in Jammu and Kashmir, Governor Satya Pal Malik had announced that he would open a dialogue with all the stakeholders and sort out all the matters of public importance. But, unfortunately, that has not happened so far,” he maintained.

Wondering if it was safe for the Union of India to describe the angry youth of Kashmir as “terrorists,” Soz stressed that “India’s Civil Society and the International Community would not accept the broad term of terrorists for the youth involved in the strife in Kashmir, with or without arms.”

“Army commanders, those who served earlier and those who serve currently in Kashmir, have in one voice, strongly proposed ‘political dialogue’ as an effective instrument to end the turmoil in Kashmir,” he asserted.

Describing Joint Resistance Leadership in Kashmir—which comprises top ranked separatist leaders such as Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik—as a “Nucleus of Boon”, he further said: “India would be well-advised to initiate a decisive dialogue with them without losing any further time.”