A worried government dispatched Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Kachu Asfandyar Khan and Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Ahfad-ul-Mujtaba to visit top Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to convince them to cancel the public march to the UN office tomorrow and rather go for a token march.

The separatists did not agree, though they did change the course. Now the procession will gather at the neighbouring Tourist Reception Centre grounds where the leadership will address the people. There is, however, no word on whether there will be a subsequent march to the UN office or not.

The Government is in a fix about how to handle this separatist groundswell across Kashmir. “It is a Catch-22 situation: whether to allow a mammoth procession in Srinagar city or try to halt it,” a senior police officer told The Indian Express. “A free run for the protestors to converge at the UN office on a narrow road strip in Srinagar city, adjoining the sensitive Gupkar road which houses top mainstream politicians, offices of security agencies and top police and civil administration officers, has a serious security dimension,” he said. “But if we halt the procession, it will mean more killings and then another cycle of protests.”

The Government has another worry too: a mammoth procession shouting separatist slogans in Srinagar city will reinforce that azadi is the new demand in Kashmir. The protests have already transcended the Amarnath land transfer row and now it is demand for azadi that can be heard on the streets — a return to 1990 — though without the guns.

The massive public outrage has also forced mainstream political parties to revise their stands. National Conference leader and MP Omar Abdullah said today that he “will resign if this current situation continues and the unjustified use of force on unarmed protestors continues”.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), meanwhile, passed a resolution expressing “distress over the excessive use of force against the protestors” and said “the killing of unarmed civilians and ransacking of properties could not be justified”.

The party pointed out that almost similar circumstances had led to eruption of the turmoil in 1990 and emphasised that the public outrage over so many killings and the brutal use of force was justified. “The Government of India must, without any further delay, reach out and engage all sections of the society, including the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference, in a productive dialogue to resolve the issues,” the resolution, which was adopted by top party leadership including former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, said.

“The Government must, with political courage, revive the peace initiative launched by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vapayee and carried forward by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which had worked well till 2005.”

Omar called the crisis the outcome of the Centre’s delaying tactics on confronting real issues. “We have been screaming that this problem does not have a military or economic solution. It is primarily political,” he told The Indian Express. “They (the Centre) though that militancy had gone down and tourism returned and thus everything is fine. We had been insisting that the policy of status quo will explode Kashmir again and it has happened. They don’t learn any lessons.”

He added that the demands of the Hurriyat were not new. “These (demands) were discussed in working groups framed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and there was an agreement to implement them. Why wait?” he said.

Omar lamented that two prime ministers had made promises in the past but never implemented them. “Both Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee made promises. The prime minister said sky is the limit but nothing happened. Then Vajpayee said that his government will not repeat previous mistakes and a solution will be found within the ambit of humanity. Again nothing concrete happened,” Omar said.

Taking a strong exception to claims that New Delhi had been investing a huge amount of money and resources in Kashmir, Omar said: “If they (the national leadership) see the relationship between Kashmir and New Delhi through money and funds alone, then how will they explain the relationship between India and Bhutan, which is not even a part of our country?” He said the Northeast too gets per capita central assistance equal if not more than Kashmir. “Why Kashmir then?” he asked.