Demonstrations, led by senior freedom fighter and chairman All Parties Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani rocked the city to protest the holding of talks between the Indian government and Maulana Abbas Ansari and his associates.
Geelani said: "Ansari and his associates are helping the designs of New Delhi."
He was addressing a mammoth gathering at Shaheed Gunj in the old city here.
Later, a large number of protestors marched on the streets against the Thursday's talks.
"Advani Ke Jo Yaar Hain, Woh Qaum Ke Gaddar Hain (Those who are friends of Advani are enemies of the people)," people said. They also raised slogans in favour of liberation.
Earlier, Geelani denounced the leaders involved in talks of misusing the name of Hurriyat Conference.
"They are not the representatives of people. Through these talks, New Delhi is making its position stronger during the forthcoming Indo-Pak talks and want to emphasise that Kashmir is its internal problem," he said.
The APHC chairman said that Ansari and his associates should have waited for the proposed Indo-Pak talks and should have insisted that Kashmir is not a border dispute.
"We should have fought for our involvement in those talks," he said.
Reacting to the results of talks, he said, "it does not accord any disputed status to Kashmir." "Instead, the freedom struggle was labelled as a violence and those engaged in talks were asked to help in quelling 'violence'," he said.
Geelani said he is not against talks but he insisted that such bilateral talks have never yielded any result. "Nor would it yield any result in the future," he said.
Other Hurriyat leaders, including Agha Syed Hassan, Hakeem Abdur Rashid, have also condemned the dialogue and they termed it a futile exercise.

Copyright South Asian News Agency, 2004

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