Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq on Monday said he would not meet the all-party delegation from New Delhi visiting Jammu and Kashmir, saying it was "a facade".
Separatist leader Yasin Malik will also not meet the delegation. Finally deciding against meeting the team, which arrived on Monday, the Mirwaiz — who heads the so-called moderate wing of the Hurriyat — said the visit was “a facade and a joke”.
People's Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti told IANS that the party had decided to send its delegation led by senior leader Muhammad Dilawar Mir to interact with the team.
"The visit has been hijacked by the ruling party," she said, referring to the ruling National Conference. Muhammad Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on Monday said he would not meet the delegation but his group had forwarded a memorandum addressed to the team.
"They should understand the heartbeats of the Kashmiri people and go back," Mr Malik said. "This visit has no utility if they just want to come here and go back."
An all-party delegation led by home minister P. Chidambaram arrived here on Monday to get a first hand impression of the situation in the Kashmir Valley where 102 civilians have died mostly in firing by security forces since June 11.