A Muslim separatist leader based in the Indian part of divided Kashmir has been finally granted permission to travel to Pakistan for his son's wedding, official sources said Monday.
Veteran separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone has been allowed to go to Rawalpindi to attend the marriage of his son Sajjad Lone to Asma Khan on November 19. The bride and the groom were both educated in London.
Khan is the daughter of the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front rebel group, Amanullah Khan, who lives in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
"The permission has been granted and it now depends upon Abdul Gani Lone if he wishes to attend the marriage," a top official told AFP on condition of anonymity in Srinagar, the state summer capital.
India and Pakistan have fought two full-scale wars over the Himalayan region, as well as a border conflict last year, and bitterly dispute the ownership of the fractured state.
An armed Muslim insurgency in Indian Kashmir has claimed more than 34,000 lives since 1989.
Nearly all the pro-independence, pro-Pakistan and pro-India leaders in Indian Kashmir have been invited to the wedding, including Kashmiri Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah.
"There is a shift in New Delhi's policy," Abdul Gani, a leader of Kashmir's largest separatist grouping, the All Party Freedom Conference said, welcoming the move to allow Lone to attend his son's wedding.
Gani pointed out that top Kashmiri separatist leader, Umar Farooq, who doubles up as Indian Kashmir's seniormost Muslim cleric, was allowed to attend the ongoing Organization of Islamic Conference meeting in Doha.
"This is good ... and that is what we have been demanding ... travel documents so that we could meet the leadership on the other side before starting talks on Kashmir.
"I wish New Delhi could issue travel documents to other Conference leaders too," Gani said.
Separatist leaders are hoping that the nuptials between the children of two front-ranking secessionist leaders from Indian- and Pakistani- zones of the divided region will help unify their fractured movement.
Earlier, Abdul Gani Lone had petitioned India's National Human Rights Commission to allow him and other Freedom Conference leaders to attend the marriage.
Several prominent people from Indian Kashmir are going to Pakistan for the marriage.
"I have been invited and I will be attending the marriage," said Tahir Mahiudin, an editor of a local weekly.
A team comprising of some two dozen prominent members of the Freedom Conference are also going to Pakistan for the ceremony -- SRINAGAR (AFP)
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