This despite the fact that among the Indians scheduled to attend were Chief Information Commissioner and veteran Kashmir bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah, National Minorities Commission chief Hamid Ansari and top Kashmir leaders, including Omar Abdullah from National Conference, Mehbooba Mufti from PDP, Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Sajjad Lone, Bilal Lone and representatives of Congress and BJP from J&K.

Ironically, the organiser, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs — with offices in Rome, Washington DC, London and Geneva — has renowned Indian agriculture scientist and Rajya Sabha MP M S Swaminathan as its international president.

The conference, to be held in Mumbai on June 2-5, was to be attended by key Pakistani politicians, former diplomats and officials: former Pakistan Army Chief Jehangir Karamat, who was Pakistan’s Ambassador to US until last year; former Pakistan High Commissioner to India Aziz Ahmed Khan; former PM of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan; PML (Nawaz) representative Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary and Chaudhary Latif Akbar from the AJK Peoples Party.

To ensure that a proper cross-section of stakeholders were present, noted public and social workers like Farman Ali from Gilgit and Ismail Khan from Baltistan were also called. Noted Pak scholar Pervez Hoodhboy was to attend as well.

Pugwash had initially planned to hold the conference on April 21-24 at Kochi. However, this clashed with the PM’s third roundtable conference on Jammu & Kashmir. So Pugwash was requested to find another date. This led to Pugwash rescheduling the conference for June 2 in Mumbai.

When asked why visas were not given to Pak participants, all that an MEA spokesman told The Indian Express: “We told Pugwash we would not be in a position to issue visas at this time.”

While a section of the government is of the view that international bodies must not be allowed to organise conferences on Kashmir in India as it may open the floodgates for a range of human rights organisations, sources said, the Pugwash Kashmir initiative had the support of the PMO and former NSA J N Dixit when it held its first conference in Kathmandu on December 11-14, 2004. Hurriyat leaders were allowed to participate and so did Satinder Lambah, currently PM’s Special Envoy on Pakistan.

The last Pugwash conference on Kashmir was held in Islamabad on March 10-12 last year. Here again, a cross-section of Kashmiri leaders including the Hurriyat, participated. But with objections from New Delhi on holding such a conference here, sources said, Pugwash may even have to consider shifting this meeting out of the country.