New Delhi: An influential leader from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) today (Feb 6, 2004) favoured holding of dialogue between people from both sides of Kashmir to help resolve the vexed issue.

Ayisa Gul, the leader of Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF) and daughter-in-law of the founder of Kashmiri separatist movement Maqbool Bhat, conveyed this to Kashmir Committee chairman and former Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani when she met him in New Delhi.

Ayisa alias Shazia Ghulam Din, presently in the national capital, told reporters after a 50-minute meeting with Jethmalani that she conveyed to him about holding of a dialogue between the people of two regions of Kashmir to evolve a broader consensus in finding a solution to the issue.

"India and Pakistan should be facilitators to this move and agree for free movement of people from one part of Kashmir to another," she said.

There was a misconception about the situation in Kashmir, Ayisa said, adding such a move would also help the PoK people in comparing their problems with the people in this part of Kashmir.

During her meeting with Jethmalani, she also told him that Hurriyat was not the only party that represented the aspirations of the entire people and that the scope of dialogue should be further widened.