Indian police arrest Shabbir Shah in New Delhi

The top separatist leaders have received an invitation from the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi for a reception being hosted for Aziz, who is scheduled to arrive in Delhi tomorrow afternoon to hold talks with Doval on Monday if everything goes as per plans.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police had earlier arrested all Hurriyat leaders including Shah, but later they were released after a few hours.

62-year-old Shabir Shah’s was also detained on Saturday upon his arrival at the Delhi airport, to prevent him from meeting Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz ahead of the proposed NSA-level talks, which later fell through.

Several other separatist leaders – Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Showkat Bakshi, Ghulam Rasool Eidi and Syed Ali Geelani – also plan to fly to New Delhi to meet with Aziz.

During questioning, Mr Wani had claimed that Rs 50 lakh were to be delivered to Shabir Shah and Rs 10 lakh to the Jaish-e-Mohammad “area commander” in Srinagar Abu Baqar, while the rest of the money was to be his commission.

“We have been meeting Pakistan leadership for 25 years now, be it NDA Govt led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee or the UPA regime”, Shah said before leaving for Delhi.

The authorities have strengthened the deployment around his residence. Pakistan regards them as genuine stakeholders in the efforts to find a lasting solution of the Kashmir Dispute.

“If talks have to happen, they will only happen only between NSAs and only on terror”, the minister added. India was running diplomacy through media and trying to give impression that Pakistan army was not supportive of talks.

Objecting to the separatists being invited India sayssays Pakistan has sprung a surprise by invoking last-minute conditions which are not part of theagenda Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif agreed upon in Russias Ufa last month.

“It was Pakistan, and not India, that was running away from the dialogue”.