Karachi, June 18 :    Karachi, June 18:  Pakistan Muslim League leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has suggested giving independence to the Indian side of the Kashmir Valley. The former interior minister said though this was his personal opinion, he would present it before the party. 'The final decision will be taken by the party,' he said, 'and if the party does not agree', he would accept its decision. This is the first time that a prominent politician like Hussain has come out publicly with this idea. The Punjab lobby, to which he belongs, generally considers Kashmir a disputed territory and its leaders advocate plebiscite. 'The UN resolutions on Kashmir calling for a plebiscite in the valley have lost their usefulness. They have, in fact, lost appeal and become a useless piece of paper,' Hussain told reporters at a reception arranged by the party's senior vice-president for Punjab, Humayun Akhtar Khan, at his residence in Lahore. The Pakistan government has not yet reacted to the proposal. Hussain said Jammu and Ladakh should be handed over to India, the valley given an independent status and Azad Kashmir (the Pakistan side of Kashmir) should remain with Pakistan. 'I will definitely put the suggestion to debate before the forthcoming central working committee meeting,' he added. He said the Kashmiri people wanted freedom and would agree to any acceptable formula for a meaningful solution to the festering problem. According to him, a fresh initiative was needed as the conventional point of view had failed to deliver. 'We should change our priorities according to our needs. And Pakistan should do it for the collective good of all of us,' Hussain said. Hussain said he was the first politician to advocate Pakistan chief executive Pervez Musharraf's meetings with politicians for consultations on the Pakistan-India talks. Referring to his meeting with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as Pakistan's interior minister during the second PML government, Hussain said the Libyan leader had told him that the UN resolutions on Kashmir had lost their significance. Calling for an open debate on his country's stance on the issue, he said: 'We should change our strategy if required.' PML president Mian Azhar, however, said his party still supported plebiscite in Kashmir.