NEW DELHI: To strengthen the spirit of cooperation and to build effective coordination among the constituent units, an interim coordination committee was formed at a meeting of leaders and representatives of organizations from Kashmir, Punjab and the North-east, which was attended among others by JKLF chairman Yasin Malik and presided by Justice Retd. Ajit Singh Bains.

This committee has been formed as a result of the continuing deliberations starting with the seminar on rights of ethnic nationalities held in Chandigarh on 8th December 2007 which was organized by Dal Khalsa and attended by JKLF, APHC, NPMHR and PHRO.

The decision was announced jointly by Prof S A R Geelani and Kanwarpal Singh at a press conference held at a press club of New Delhi.

The first members of the interim committee are Prof. S. A. R. Geelani of Society for Protection of Detainees and Prisoners Rights, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, Executive Member (APHC), Mohammed Ashraf Lone, Adv. Head Human Rights Wing of All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Er. Ghulam Rasool Dar, General Secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Navkiran Singh Advocate of Lawyers for Human Rights International and Kanwarpal Singh, general secretary of Dal Khalsa. 

Representatives of the Naga and Assam groups will be included in the committee in due course.

After extensive deliberations on the civil and political rights situation in the respective areas, a number of decisions were taken and it was resolved to expand the scope of the committee to include members from the North-east and other regional groups and movements struggling for peoples' rights.

Since the last six decades, various ethnic nationalities have been encountering repressive policies of the Indian state and all these groups have resolved to resist the same in a united manner.

 The following resolutions were unanimously passed in the meeting:

All political prisoners in Kashmir, Punjab, and the north-east as well as others parts of the country must be released.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Disturbed Areas Act and other anti-people legislation should be withdrawn from Kashmir, North-east and Punjab.

The meeting urged the Indian state to abolish death penalty from the statute. Pending the abolition of capital punishment, the death sentences of all prisoners, including political prisoners like Mohammed Afzal, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Jagtar Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh should be commuted to life imprisonment. 

Those prisoners, who are on the death row for an unreasonably long time, should be released immediately.

Widespread impunity and discretion granted to the army and the police, which has played havoc with human rights of people in respective areas, -in individual cases as well as gross abuse of peoples together, should be withdrawn.

The interim Committee, in one of its first decisions, sent greetings to the people of Kosovo who were able to declare their independence after a century of subjugation and oppression.

The meeting also condemned the oppression of Tibetans in Lhasa by the Chinese police and military forces and urged the international community to intervene to uphold the rights of the people of Tibet.