Srinagar, Sept 4: The turf war between rival factions of the Hurriyat Conference had reached a point where moderate leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq counseled against issuing a passport to hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani for seeking treatment in the United States saying he would “stir up trouble”, according to American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
“When we met Mirwaiz in February, he said it would be a big mistake for the GOI (Government of India) to issue Geelani a passport to travel, because he would stir up trouble,” a March 2007 US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks said.
The cable with a subject title “Kashmiri rejectionist hardliner Geelani seeks US visa” was written by Pyatt—apparently the then US Charge d'Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt.
Geelani had applied for a visa to travel to the US for medical treatment for cancer in his remaining kidney. The US had later denied visa to Geelani.
While making a cost-benefit analysis of issuing a visa, the US official had believed Geelani's travel to their country will “physically” take him out of the political picture in India.
“Mirwaiz will not have Geelani breathing down his neck in a delicate political moment in the Valley,” the diplomatic cable said referring to the Indo-Pak dialogue process which was believed to have thrashed out a solution to Kashmir issue.
One of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks had quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying New Delhi and Islamabad had in principle agreed on a solution to Kashmir.
Washington had mulled an alternate plan of sending Geelani to a third country like Singapore where he would not engage in as much “grandstanding or fundraising” supported by the local Kashmiri community. PTI
