Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev`s close aide Ved Pratap Vaidik who was recently in headlines after meeting with the 26/11 mastermind and Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed, said on Wednesday that Kashmiri separatists meeting Pakistani leaders is an `old tradition`.
“This is old tradition, other PMs met Hurriyat leaders earlier too,” Ved Vaidik told reporters today on Pak High Commissioner meeting separatists.
Further over Indian government`s decision to call-off the foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, Vaidik said, “Govt had right to take decision but environment for dialogue was set & could have led to something.”
Yesterday, hardline Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani met Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit, a day after India canceled the Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan to protest against a meeting between Kashmiri separatist leaders and Islamabad’s envoy to New Delhi.
The separatist leader reportedly had said that Kashmir is not an internal issue as he slammed government’s decision to call off the talks with Pakistan.
Both ruling National Conference (NC) and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir had criticised the Centre for calling off the meeting.
Reacting sharply over the issue, Congress also kept up the attack on NDA over cancellation of Indo-Pak talks even as the government and BJP said that the neighbouring country cannot "walk with separatism and talk with Government of India" simultaneously.
