Just three days after Hizb ul-Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah raised hopes of a winter truce in Jammu and Kashmir, pressure from sister Islamist groups has forced him to withdraw from what was being hailed as a historic breakthrough. United Jihad Council (UJC) spokesperson Syed Sadaqat Hussain told the Srinagar-based Kashmir News Service on Wednesday that the Hizb ul-Mujahideen chief "had not offered ceasefire." Mr. Hussain claimed that Mr. Shah, "while responding to a question said that the UJC doesn't believe in [initiating a] ceasefire for the sake of [a] ceasefire." According to Mr. Hussain, Mr. Shah said an Indian ceasefire offer would be acceptable only if it was preceded by a declaration that Jammu and Kashmir was a disputed territory, and if New Delhi accepted that there were three parties to the dispute. The Pakistan-based UJC is a 13-member coalition, in which the Hizb ul-Mujahideen is the largest partner.
Enormous optimism was raised by Mr. Shah's November 27 statement to the Srinagar-based Current News Service (CNS), in which he seemed to drop these long-standing UJC preconditions. According to the CNS interview, Mr. Shah asked that India release all prisoners unconditionally, scale back its armed forces to pre-1989 levels, and end human rights violations.