Govt wants to force us into talks: Yasin Malik
SRINAGAR: Senior separatist leader Yasin Malik on Saturday accused Indian government of digging out “false” cases against separatists to force them to “talk at gun point”.
The statement by Malik, who is chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, came after media reports said that Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a notice to him and two others for alleged forex violation of ₹48.23 lakh.
Malik said he has not received the notice as yet which dates back to 2001 and came to know about it through media reports.
“Seemingly this has been first disclosed to the media for initiating a media trial as usual. This is the realty of these farce cases which (are) only furnished to settle political vendetta and threaten political resistance, and force people to join so-called ‘talk shows’ on gun point,” Malik said in a statement after addressing a press conference in Srinagar.
Malik along with Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have stated that they won’t engage with centre appointed interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma, country’s former IB chief who was tasked by government to initiate talks in Kashmir facing a three-decade old insurgency. The trio has maintained that appointment of DineshwarSharma was “a tactic to buy time under international pressure and regional compulsion” and “no Kashmiri will participate in the exercise of futility”.
Malik stated that the said case was 16 years old and its trail was already going on under POTA.
“If we say no, they come up with so-called notices and cases to intimidate and penalize us,” he added