Chief of the Hurriyat Conference (Gilani faction), Syed Ali Gilani has opposed the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service accord reached between India and Pakistan to facilitate the Kashmiris of Azad Kashmir and Occupied Kashmir to meet their relatives living on the other side of the LoC. He said, it is not at all an issue for us. The Kashmiri leader pointed out that nearly 100, 000 people have been martyred in the past fifteen years. If we ask their souls, no one of them will say that he sacrificed his life for the commencement of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.

According to BBC, the Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan and the BJP in India are also opposing the bus service. Besides, the Jihad Council in Indian occupied Kashmir too is opposed to it.

Syed Ali Gilani in his interview to it further said that the Kashmiris have rendered sacrifices for achieving right to self-determination, on the basis of which Kashmir solution ought to be resolved.

This resumption of bus service eclipses our demand for the solution of Kashmir, which we have been making for the past fifty seven years, Gilani expressed the view and added, it will once again put the Kashmir issue in the cold storage.

Responding to a question he further said that all the formalities will be the same as have been with regard to the issue of Passports. He maintained that the basic issue has been sidelined and put into cold storage.

Copyright News Network International, 2005