Srinagar: Hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Monday stuck to his party’s pro-independence stance as a four-member team of leaders, who are part of the all-party delegation in Kashmir, visited him at his residence here.
“We don’t want economic package, we want independence,” the 80-year-old leader told the team that included CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.
Geelani neither went to meet the delegation nor sent any memorandum.
He insisted normalcy could not be restored in Jammu and Kashmir unless the security forces were withdrawn and New Delhi recognised Kashmir as a dispute.
"Discuss the question of Jammu and Kashmir as a dispute. It is not an integral part of India," he said when Yechury pleaded for restoration of normalcy with the separatist leader who has been one of the key players in the three-month long agitation by issuing periodic calendars of protests.
Claiming that India's presence in Kashmir was not legitimate, the separatist leader said since 1947, over 150 dialogue had taken place on the vexed issue without yielding any result.
Two other teams of the delegation met Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF leader Yasin Malik separately to know their views. With PTI Inputs
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