Omar Farooq visits the grave of ancestor Yousaf Shah in Muzaffarabad. (AP)

Muzaffarabad, June 3: Think people, not photo-ops. That was the message Mohammad Yasin Malik preached to leaders from both sides of Kashmir today.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief, who arrived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir yesterday with eight other politicians from the Indian side, scoffed at leaders “who exist more in media than in the public”.

“There are Kashmiri leaders who occupy big spaces in the media but don’t have the following even of 20 people,” he said alluding to pro-establishment leaders on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC).

Among the nine visitors from Jammu and Kashmir, seven are moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders.

Malik, who said he had crossed the LoC eight times before shunning arms and settling down for political struggle, didn’t spare the Kashmiri leadership on the Pakistani side, saying they were acting out of hypocrisy and not out of concern for the people.

“If you opt for the media glare rather than care for the Kashmiris, it is nothing but criminal (on your part),” Malik said.

The Hurriyat leaders, however, were milder in their tone and mixed optimism with caution and a demand to involve Kashmiris in the peace talks.

“It is in the interest of both Pakistan and India to include Kashmiris in the composite dialogue in order to make the process irreversible,” Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq said.

“We have brought with us concrete proposals for settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, which we would like to share with the leadership in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan.”

Professor Ghulam Nabi Bhat said Kashmiris had endured enormous problems because of oppression from all sides. “We are victims of oppression?. but if I name who killed the senior Mirwaiz (Farooq’s father, assassinated in 1990), who killed Abdul Ghani Lone, maybe my head would be chopped off tomorrow,” Bhat told his audience.

The leaders from Jammu and Kashmir will be in Islamabad tomorrow to meet President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. They travel to Lahore and Karachi next week.

The team may also be able to secure a meeting with representatives of the United Jehad Council, the umbrella organisation of Kashmiri militant groups.

Pakistanis refer to Pakistan-administered Kashmir as Azad Kashmir.