senior Hurriyat leader has created a flutter by saying that two separatist leaders and his brother were killed by "our own people" and not security agencies, prompting J&K government to term it as a "late admission" and a call for a probe to fix responsibility.
"No police was involved (in the killings).... It was our own people who killed them," former Hurriyat Conference Chairman Abdul Gani Bhat said.
Asked to identify the killers, Bhat said, "What is the need to identify them.... they are already identified."
The separatist leaders had earlier blamed the security forces for the killings.
Other moderate Hurriyat leaders chose to maintain a studied silence on Bhat's remarks.
The state government has held that then Hizbul Mujahideen commander Mohammad Abdullah Bangroo had killed Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq while a commander of Al-Umar Mujahideen had shot dead senior Lone.
Jammu and Kashmir's Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda said that "the person involved in the killing of Mirwaiz Farooq is also buried in the same 'martyrs' graveyard' where the senior Mirwaiz was laid to rest".
A senior Hurriyat leader, who did not wish to be named, said there was nothing new in Bhat's remarks.
"Bhat has made the same speech in 'Azad Jammu and Kashmir' (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) Assembly five years ago," the leader said.
The moderate faction of the Hurriyat is unhappy with the way Geelani had handled the recent summer unrest in the Valley as many of them questioned the tactics of strikes and stone-pelting during a seminar yesterday.
In response to a question about unity efforts among the separatists, Bhat said it was "irrelevant" at the moment and that he would take a decision about it in his individual capacity if such a development takes place.
"I have never been part of and never will be part of any meaningless exercise. Why are you flogging us with the unity lash," the Hurriyat leader said.
Hurriyat Conference suffered a vertical split in September 2003 after Geelani accused Bhat and other moderate leaders of not running an effective anti-election campaign in 2002 assembly polls when he was in jail.
