SRINAGAR: The “Al-Faran” militant outfit, holding four foreigners captive, Dec 2nd asked the All Party Kashmir Hurriyat Conference (APKHC) to mediate to solve the five month long hostage crisis, report agencies.

Reacting to an appeal by the APKHC for the unconditional release of the hostages, the outfit, in a statement here, said, “We cannot do so unless our demands are met by the authorities.” “If the APHKC mediates and ‘gets our jailed activists released, we will free the hostages,” the statement said.

Breaking a six day silence after they snapped contact with the authorities and indicating at the general wellbeing of the hostages the outfit said, “We are treating all these foreigners as our honored guests. They are being provided with all facilities within our capacity, though we are facing some problems because of cold and other reasons.

“We know for how long to keep the hostages alive,” the statement added. The outfit which had threatened on November 26 to kill the hostages claimed that they had two direct confrontation with the security forces in which two of its activists were killed.

However, a government spokesman had denied that there was any exchange of fire between the security forces and militants as claimed by the outfit.

The “Al-Faran” statement said, “we cannot protect them (hostages) for a Jong period and if APKHC is interested in their welfare they should get our demands accepted by the authorities.”

The outfit which abducted Keith Monigam, Paul Well (Britain), Donald Hutchings (America) and Dirk Hasert (Germany) on July 4, is demanding the release of its 15 jailed activists in exchange of the hostages.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has turned down a plea by AL-Faran, the militant outfit holding four foreign hostages captive since July in Kashmir, to mediate in the hostage crises.

Al-Faran had asked the APHC to mediate with the government for a swap of jailed militants for the hostages. The APHC has renewed its appeal for unconditional release of the hostages.

Al-Faran responded to last week’s appeal from the Hurriyat for the unconditional release of the hostages. In its appeal, the APHC had told Al Faran “If you are Muslims and sympathizers of the freedom struggle, please let the hostages go.”

Article extracted from this publication >> December 8, 1995