New Delhi, July 21: Centre’s interlocutor on Kashmir, M M Ansari Thursday termed as unfortunate the reported participation of another interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar in conferences organised by incarcerated Kashmir American Council chief Ghulam Nabi Fai.
"If it is true that he (Padgaonkar) has known the activities of some such activists
(Fai) elsewhere and still he has been doing it, I would say that will be most unfortunate," said Ansari, a former Central Information Commissioner.
Fai was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday from his house in Fairfax in Virginia, an affluent suburb of Washington DC, on charges of receiving hundreds and thousands of dollars from Pakistan and using them for lobbying at the Capitol Hill and holding seminars and conferences by inviting eminent journalists and intellectuals from India.
Reacting to reports that he had travelled to the US to attend a Kashmir conference, Padgaonkar said he did travel on Fai's invitation but that was a long time ago.
He did not have the faintest of idea about Fai's affiliation with ISI as "Google was not available then".
Fai had roped in several eminent Indian journalists and intellectuals during his more than two decades of high-profile operations in USA.
Kashmir-born and educated at the Aligarh Muslim University, Fai even managed get them in the drafting committee of his annual event "International Kashmir Peace Conference."
The invitees included the eminent Indian journalist and former Indian High Commissioner to Britain, Kuldip Nayar, former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, Justice (Retd) Rajinder Sachar, journalist Harinder Baweja, editor Ved Bhasin and Gautam Navlakha.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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