Govt’s advocates figure among Shopian ‘conspirators’
HCBA threatens writ petition against CBI for ‘harassing’ lawyers

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 21: An advocate, appointed as Public Prosecutor in September 2009 by Omar Abdullah’s National Conference-led coalition government, as also his predecessor, appointed by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-led coalition government in 2003, have surfaced on CBI’s radar even as the agency is understood to have completed its investigation in the alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian and the search has begun for ‘conspirators’ who had created ‘false witnesses’, leading to turbulence in entire Kashmir valley for over two months. With CBI grilling seven Shopian-based advocates, including the present and former Public Prosecutors, High Court Bar Association (HCBA) has threatened to file a writ petition and also decided to proceed against two witnesses who have turned hostile after having got their statements recorded before a judicial magistrate.

Senior NC leader and Minister for Rural Development, Ali Mohammad Sagar, today asserted at a news conference here that his government would leave no stone unturned in identifying and punishing the “rapists and killers” of the two young woman in Shopian. He reiterated that his government, led by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, would ensure that none of the culprits succeeded to escape from the punishment he deserved. However, in a dramatic development, CBI has summoned and grilled seven Shopian-based advocates, including Mr Sagar’s appointee, Sheikh Mubarak, as also his predecessor, advocate Mushtaq Ahmed Gatoo, appointed as PP by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP government in 2003, for their allegedly causing harassment to some ‘witnesses’.

Others summoned and questioned for hours by a CBI team at its Humhama camp include President of Bar Association Shopian, advocate Abdul Majeed Mir, his predecessor, advocate Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, besides advocates Syed Aijaz Hussain, Mushtaq Ahmed and Shah Mansoor.

While as the PP, pursuing State’s cases at the court of District and Sessions Judge Shopian, Sheikh Mubarak, his predecessor as also sitting and former Presidents of Bar Association Shopian were grilled for over 12 hours on Wednesday last, advocates Aijaz, Mushtaq and Mansoor appeared before CBI today in compliance with a notice served on them earlier this week. As CBI has been barred by J&K High Court from disclosing its proceedings and observations, it was not clear as to what prompted the investigating agency to question the lawyers.

After a commission of inquiry, headed by retired judge of J&K High Court, Muzaffar Jan, and a Special Investigating Team (SIT) of J&K Police failed to find the culprits, state government had assigned the investigation to CBI in September last. Both women, 25-year-old Neelofar Jan w/o Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar, and 17-year-old Aasiya Jan, unmarried sister of Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar, had been found dead in Rambiara nullah in Shopian on May 30th, 2009. Amid wide allegations of ‘twin rape-cum-murder’ against Police and security forces, Valley had remained turbulent for several weeks. Nearly half-a-dozen civilians died and hundreds sustained injuries in resultant demonstrations.

Non-official sources insist that CBI had summoned and questioned the lawyers in the wake of fresh statements of two witnesses, namely Ghulam Mohiuddin and Abdul Rashid Pampori, who have turned hostile and charged the lawyers with causing them ‘harassment’ so as to give a particular statement that could frame certain Police officials. One of these witnesses said on television the other day that the lawyers, including President of Bar Association Shopian, had forced him to narrate that he had spotted a Tata-407 of Police at Rambiara and heard feminine “shrieks and screams” in the evening on May 29th. He claimed that it was all a concocted story, extorted from him under duress by both, members of Shopian Bar as well as the Public Prosecutors.

Both witnesses have backtracked from their previous statement, recorded in District and Sessions Court Shopian under Section 164 Cr PC earlier this year, and got a fresh statement recorded last week. Meanwhile, Dr Nighat Shaheen, who had claimed to have conducted per vaginal of the dead bodies on May 30h and declared publicly that both had been “victims of gang rape and murder”, has also changed her statements and made startling disclosures as to how she had fudged the vaginal swabs.

HCBA here has taken strong exception to CBI’s act of getting fresh statements recorded from the witnesses who had long back got their statements recorded before a judicial magistrate under section 164 Cr PC. Sources said that HCBA today held an emergency meeting over the fresh developments and questioned CBI’s authority of getting the statements recorded afresh and “causing harassment” to the lawyers. Sources said that HCBA chief threatened to file a writ petition before J&K High Court to challenge CBI’s authority as also District & Sessions Judge’s permission to get a fresh statement recorded from the witnesses turning hostile.

Sources said that HCBA also decided to proceed against the two witnesses under Section 199 of Indian Penal Code that makes any witness, who backtracks from his statement recorded before a judicial magistrate under Section 164 Cr PC, liable for the same punishment as due to the criminal in the matter by law.

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FIR after FIR by CBI, largesse after largesse by DD

Ex-SFC official’s family gets projects worth Rs 1 cr from Prasar Bharti

Early Times Report

SRINAGAR, Nov 20: Different family members of a vigilance-tainted officer of Jammu & Kashmir State Forest Corporation (SFC), whose services were finally terminated by Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government on account of his serious indictment by Kundal Committee in 2007, have surfaced to be the beneficiaries of Doordarshan’s widely condemned commissioning for Kashir Channel. Even as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been registering FIR after FIR against members of this family for their alleged involvement in multi-Crore scandals---latest being in June 2009---Ambika Soni’s national broadcaster has crossed all limits of showering undue favours on them, this time around Rs 1 Crore projects in DD Kashir.

Doordarshan authorities at ‘Mandi House’ in New Delhi have been continuously refusing to put the list of the allottees and their credentials on DD’s website but the list of the beneficiaries published in local newspapers as a paid advertisement by a group of private producers has made it public that at least four of them belong to the former SFC official’s family. They are clearly identifiable by their surname. Insiders insist that inspite of CBI having registered three criminal matters against them, DD Kashir’s head and incharge Deputy Director General (DDG), Ananya Banerjee, had been openly calling one of them as “my son”. Ms Banerjee has reportedly played key role in the dubious commissioning process that has dangerously eroded Doordarshan’s credibility among the intelligentsia in Jammu & Kashmir.

Informed sources revealed to Early Times that DDG Ananya Banerjee has succeeded in manipulating the commissioning process for DD Kashir and has allotted 40-50 programmes of budget ranging between Rs 2 to 3 Lakh directly to two sons of the former SFC official, his brother and nephew. The largesse has been expanded even to his nephew’s father-in-law who has never in his life either made a programme for DD or entered its premises. DDK Srinagar official, Gulab-ud-din Tahir, who had been hand-picked by Banerjee and associated with the commissioning process at ‘Mandi House’ in New Delhi, is reported to have issued more than 200 fake certificates, claiming that these ‘private producers’ had made hundreds of programmes which had been telecast by DDK Srinagar and DD Kashir.

According to these sources, some of the allottees are either completely anonymous or have joined as actors or assistants in the last 2-3 years but all of them have been allotted programmes on the basis of fake and fraudulent telecast certificates issued by GD Tahir. According to DD’s standing guidelines, private producers were eligible for empanelment of 2007-08 only if they had experience of five years in the field of television production. One of the freshers, who has been allotted highest number of 13 programmes, was reportedly a regular employee of the state government until recently.

Enquiries revealed that the SFC official had been booked by J&K State Vigilance Organisation in serious matters of corruption and embezzlement of public money as many as three times in the last 20 years. In one of such cases, he had clandestinely managed surrender of the prosecution against him and joined back years after he had been sacked. Even after investing huge money in television production, he joined back but was, years later, placed under suspension on account of his alleged involvement in multi-Crore timber extraction allotment scandal in SFC. Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government finally terminated his services after Kundal Committee established his criminal involvement in a number of matters.

As recently as in June 2009, CBI in Srinagar booked four members of the ex-SFC official’s family and registered against them an FIR under sections 13(1) D of Prevention of Corruption Act and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) as sleuths of the Central agency seized thousands of tapes from the room of DDK Srinagar’s morning show (‘Subhai Subhai’) producer Ghulam Hassan Dar. DDK Srinagar had allegedly acquired as many 9,500 segments clandestinely from this particular family and was in the process of releasing the payments when CBI conducted the raid on a specific information and launched a detailed investigation.

Reports, of late, suggest that this family, with the support of some DDK Srinagar officials, has even managed to earn (or buy) good wishes of some CBI officials in Srinagar who have, reportedly, assured them to issue “No Involvement Certificate” after the matter cools off under the passage of time. Allegations have begun to pour in that officials of the agency had themselves discovered a goldmine in DDK Srinagar and in-house programmes were being allotted to them secretly on different front names.

With a “rich profile” in scandalous matters, members of the same family had been booked by CBI during the DD Kashir commissioning process eight years ago. They were arrested and lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail alongwith then Director of Programmes P K Dass and his junior Mumtaz Beg. Thereafter, CBI and Central Vigilance registered another criminal matter against them during the tenure of Director of Programmes, DD Kashir, Anurag Misra. However, with the advantage of their money power and close connections with senior officials in DD and Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation, the accused either managed to weaken the cases against them or succeeded in getting scot free.

Sources revealed that in addition to the “Subhai Subhai” acquisition scandal, members of the same family and their relatives and employees have been entertained as “facility providers” of more than 200 in-house programmes at DDK Srinagar in the last 16 months, claiming payment of over Rs 70 Lakhs.

Attempts to get DD authorities’ comments did not succeed as Director DDK Srinagar, himself an accused before CBI, had his mobile phone continuously switched off and his office maintained that he was not present. Offices of DD’s Director General, Aruna Sharma, and DDG of DD Kashir, Ananya Banerjee, did not respond to phone calls from Srinagar.

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6 DIGs, Brigadiers killed in 20 years of J&K militancy

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 18: Army’s brigade commanders and Deputy Inspectors General (DIGs) of Police and paramilitary forces are the highest ranking officials killed by separatist militants in 20 years of armed insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir. While as Army has suffered the loss of 3 Brigadiers, followed by 2 DIGs of the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF), one-odd DIG of Jammu & Kashmir Police (JKP) was eliminated in a broad daylight shootout when he was coming out of a mosque in this capital city after performing his prayers on occasion of Idd-ul-azha five years ago.

Death of BSF’s DIG Provisioning and incharge Sector Commander in Samba-Ramnagar border belt in Jammu, Om Prakash Tanwar, on Monday last was the 6th fatal casualty in this category of high ranking officers in Police and armed forces in Jammu & Kashmir since eruption of the secessionist insurgency in 1988-89. DIG Tanwar’s vehicle was blown up by suspected militants, with possible support of regular forces on the International Border, in a landmine blast when senior officials of the force were conducting an inspection of the area following an attempt of infiltration by a group of militants. His subordinate Commanding Officer of a battalion had a providential escape as he had reportedly come out of the vehicle yards short of the death trap.

Brigadier Sreedhar of Baramulla-based 19th Infantry Division, who was commander of a Brigade, with its headquarters in Uri, was the first seniormost officer of armed forces who was eliminated much like DIG Tanwar in an equally powerful landmine blast close to LoC in Uri sector in March 1995.

The second fatal casualty occurred on 13th July, 1999, when militants introduced suicide strikes against armed forces in Jammu & Kashmir with a fidayeen attack on BSF’s headquarters of Sector-11 at Madar near Bandipore in north-east of the Valley. Sector Commander, DIG S K Chakravarty and Joint Assistant Director (G) Mohan Raj, Sub Inspector Bhaskar were among four BSF officials in the unprecedented gunbattle. A special contingent of National Security Guards (NSG) commandoes was flown in for the operation from New Delhi in addition to senior BSF officials, Army’s Marine Commandoes (Marcos) and different units of Army and BSF that participated in the 70-hour-long encounter with militants.

The suicide attack on the BSF camp in Bandipore, in which three militants also got killed, happened in the thick of Kargil War. J&K has till date witnessed nearly 80 fidayeen attacks on different camps of Army, BSF, CRPF, JKP besides non-military installations likeTourist Reception Srinagar, Passport Office Srinagar, Press Information Bureau complex Srinagar, Income Tax complex Srinagar, Radio Kashmir Srinagar, Raghunath Mandir Jammu and Railway Station Jammu.

Making an inspection of Sector-7 area in Kupwara district just three days after his joining at Drugmulla, Brig B S Shergil became the third major target of militants when they blew up his vehicle in an IED blast on Zachaldara-Handwara Road in then militant-infested Rajwar belt in north Kashmir on 21st August, 2000. He was killed alongwith three other Army officials accompanying him. They included Commanding Officer of Rashtriya Rifles 21 Bn, Col Rajinder Chauhan, who was under transfer and was on the last tour of his area of operation.

Armed forces in J&K suffered the worst ever damage when as many as 8 Army officials, including Brig V K Govil of 16 Corps, got killed in a suicide strike by militants on EME camp, Bangti (Tanda), on Akhnoor-Tanda Road, in Jammu division on 22nd July 2003. Senior Army commanders, including then General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Northern Command, Lt Gen Hari Prasad, Commander of Nagrota-based 16 Corps, Lt Gen T P S Brar, two Major Generals D Khanna and T K Sapru, Brigadier Baldev Singh of 10 RT Brigade and two more officers of the rank of Colonel had sustained injuries in this strike as one of the militants hiding behind Sarkanda grass blew himself up close to his targets.

Jammu and Kashmir Police has suffered the first and the last fatal casualty in this category of senior officers when militants gunned down DIG Crime & Railways, Mohammad Amin Bhat, in point blank range at Barzulla in Srinagar on 2nd February, 2004. On leave because of Idd-ul-Azha, DIG Bhat was unarmed and in his civvies when he was killed like a lame duck. As he was coming out of a mosque after performing his prayers on the day of Idd, two unidentified militants fired upon him, killing him on the spot.

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Mirwaiz, colleagues meet Chidambaram in Delhi

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 16: Second round of a secret dialogue between Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference with the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has taken place in New Delhi on Saturday, days before the cleric-politician is scheduled to visit Pakistan. Highly placed sources, believed to be well informed of the new development, revealed to Early Times that Mirwaiz was accompanied by his Hurriyat confidante Bilal Gani Lone and former Chairman of the conglomerate, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat.

According to these sources, Mirwaiz, Lone and Bhat got together at Khan Market---also frequently visited by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his family---a little after mid-day and an official car without number plate drove them straight to the nearby Lodhi Estate where Home Minister Chidambaram held a secret meeting with the Kashmiri separatist leaders at a safe house. The meeting lasted for two hours, sources said but claimed to have no knowledge of what had transpired between the two sides.

As agreed in a contact between the two, Central and state security and intelligence agencies, who normally maintain watch on the Hurriyat leaders, were directed to clear out at 1100 hours. Accordingly, there was no visible security or intelligence cover, sources said.

Even as nobody from the Hurriyat responded to phone calls, sources close to Mirwaiz maintained that no such meeting had taken place between the Chairman and the Union Home Minister. “These are deliberate leaks being floated by officials in Omar Abdullah’s governments who do not seem to be sincere in their talk of restoration of the dialogue process with the Kashmiri leadership”, said a senior separatist leader wishing anonymity. He said that Mirwaiz Umar’s detractors in a rival Hurriyat camp had also shown a lot of enthusiasm in trumpeting about a meeting he had, according to a New Delhi report, held with Chidambaram before his departure for participation in the OIC meeting in New York last month.

Amid Chidambaram’s refrain of “quiet diplomacy”, former RAW chief A S Dullat and former Pakistani High Commissioner, Aziz Ahmed Khan, have reportedly held three rounds of talks in Bangkok. Khan was last month in Srinagar where he participated an Indo-Pakistan civil society conference and also held at least two meetings with Mirwaiz and Governor N N Vohra, separately. He was also joined in both meetings by a former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan.

After days of his hectic political activity in Doda and Kishtwar districts in Muslim-dominated parts of Jammu region, followed by a three-day visit to New Delhi, Mirwaiz today reached here back and joined the funeral of prominent journalist and editor of ‘Srinagar Times’ Sofi Ghulam Mohammad. He also led the Namaaz-e-Janaazah.

Sources close to Mirwaiz said that the Hurriyat Executive Council would meet here on Wednesday to discuss his forthcoming visit to Pakistan as also to constitute a team of senior separatist leaders who would be accompanying the Hurriyat chief.

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ET OBITUARY

GM Sofi: An icon and iconoclast

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 16: After reading him regularly for nearly three decades, it was in 2004 that I discovered in him as a good human being and neighbour when we shared a room for about a week at a hotel in London. Until then, I knew Sofi Ghulam Mohammad as an extremely ambitious journalist who had mastery in making the powers that be bow. Inspite of being impressed with his powerful editorials and earlier day scoops---blindness disease in Karnah and selling of Bengali women in Valley---I often thought that his without his brother Bashir Ahmed Bashir’s cartoons, ‘Srinagar Times’ would have been nothing different from Nand Lal Wattal’s ‘Khidmat’, Aziz Kashmiris’ ‘Roshni’ or his old colleague G R Irfani’s ‘Naya Sansar’. Then I learned how Sofi was not only born great but also how greatness does follow such people in all times.

On a couple of occasions, I felt nervous as the 80-year-old did for me (in my absence) what only your caring mothers and domestic helps do. I had little knowledge how great a neighbour he was for her at Buchhwara but, thousands of miles away from home, he looked like father of a broadcaster working at the BBC. Close to his check out, he took out a meticulously preserved container and told me that it had to be delivered at Bush House at any cost. Then I learned that it was a pack of sumptuous Kashmiri waazwaan Sofi had carried all the way from Srinagar. I knew its importance as I had the experience of such things being thrown away by even one’s family members due to time constraints.

Even as he could not visit Bush House and his neighbour could not come to the hotel due to a sprain, Sofi Sahab did not take rest until the gift from home reached the broadcaster.

My 31-year-long association with Sofi Ghulam Mohammad had begun in late 1970s when as a rebel student at the school I took strong objection to ST’s edit page assault on Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari for having walked out in protest at an official function. Ansari had left the auditorium at Women’s College when a group of the girl students presented a dance item before President of India and then Chief Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. I penned a ripper on Sofi’s column “Iftikhar ka Ehtijaj” and went straight to get it published in Shameem Ahmed Shameem’s “Aayina”. I knew Sofi and Shameem were at draggers drawn.

Contrary to my high expectations, Shameem brought it home to me that the reaction needed to appear in ST alone. “If Sofi Sahab does not publish, come back to me”, Shameem advised.

Getting upstairs, I was certain that the cantankerous editor would not only tear my papers but would also thrash me to pulp. Captioned “Srinagar Times ek baday jurm kii parda poshi kar raha hai”, the two-part write up made Sofi read up to the end. “Excellent. Excellent. Keep it up young boy”, he exclaimed in appreciation and gave me a pat. I still apprehended it would follow with a slap and abuse. It really didn’t. Next morning, I was taken aback to find the piece without editing a punctuation in the ST. Part-2 appeared the day after but stirred a hornet’s nest as Sheikh’s aficionado Sadiq Ali wrote a bitter rejoinder. It was soon followed by a battery of ghost writers.

That Sofi was an indomitable journalist was proved when the gunmen claiming to be representatives of the Kashmiri people began targeting him, first with threats and later with guns and grenades. He had the distinction of being the first journalist to receive a bullet wrapped in a piece of paper. Azam Inquillabi’s note to the editor---perhaps days before Rubaiyya Sayeed kidnapping--- asked Sofi Sahab to choose between death and publishing the militants’ statements verbatim.

Sofi’s half-heartedly toeing the militants’ line failed him to get the recognition of a “freedom loving” scribe. As he began showing limits to his bending and taking the diktats blindly---and set up parallel office at his home---, he was subjected to at least four unsuccessful attempts on his life. The last one happened at his home office when the octogenarian scribe had a physical scuffle with the armed assailant. Pushed to the wall, Sofi developed interest in active politics, was nominated as Member of Legislative Council by then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed but restricted himself to projecting only the matters of high public interest and importance.

While being a nominee of then ruling coalition, Sofi launched a bitter campaign against Mufti’s powerful ministerial colleagues, notably Ghulam Hassan Mir and Hakeem Mohammad Yasin.

Sofi Sahab revealed to me on more than one occasion that he had been reading my previous newspaper for two things: “Your incisive reports and Page 2, that tells me who among the Kashmiri Pandits has passed away in the last 24 hours”. Notwithstanding his 1990-days phrases like “mafroor Pandit”, “Mukhbir” et al, I had discovered a passion in Sofi Sahab for Kashmir’s composite culture and plural society.

“I feel as if our arms and legs have been amputated”, he told me once while bemoaning on the mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits. “It will be a great favour if you carry my brother’s obituary on page 2 of your newspaper”, he said on the day of journalist-historian Sofi Ghulam Mohiuddin’s demise three years ago and made it a point that the news of his death reached every member of the displaced Pandit community in Jammu, Udhampur, Delhi and other places.

It is definitely not for nothing that Kashmir’s who’s who from Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Geelani to Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah, from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to a number of his ministerial colleagues today joined the ranks of Sofi Sahab’s Namaaz-e-Janazah on the Boulevard.

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Mirwaiz lieutenants again in the eye of a storm
Efforts underway to isolate Prof Gani, Bilal Lone, Abbas Ansari, Fazal Haq

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 15: Much like last year’s turbulence on controversial allotment of land to Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board, faces of moderate politics in the Kashmiri separatist camp are once again being isolated not only by Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference but also by many in Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s own conglomerate. Obviously encouraged by the space created by Omar Abdullah-led coalition government for Mr Geelani, pro-unification leaders like Shabir Ahmed Shah and Nayeem Ahmed Khan have begun efforts to neutralize the Hurriyat (M) foursome---Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Gani Lone, Maulana Abbas Ansari and Fazal Haq Qureishi---amid speculations of Mirwaiz joining a dialogue process and “secret diplomacy” with New Delhi and Islamabad for working out a resolution of the Kashmir crisis.

With the mercury dipping fast, summer capital has suddenly become venue for hot political activity of the separatist camp. In the past three days, at least four conferences have been held here on the role of “resistance leaders”---a phrase coined by a section of media for the politicians struggling for Kashmir’s separation from the Indian sovereignty. Even as representatives of almost all the separatist outfits are being invited by the organizers, hardliners like Geelani and Dukhtaraan-e-Millat chief, Asiya Andrabi, besides President of High Court Bar Association, Mian Abdul Qayoom, are invariably the star speakers.

Asiya has launched fresh tirade against Mirwaiz, alleging that the young separatist leader was going to take the Pakistani leadership into confidence so as to get Islamabad’s approval to New Delhi’s plans on Kashmir. According to her, Mirwaiz had set off with an Indian agenda.

One more platform came handy today on occasion of the 4th day ceremony of Prof Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh who passed away last week. Speaking in the well-attended condolence meeting, Geelani announced that a major conference would be organized on the campus of University of Kashmir on occasion of Chehlum (40th day ceremony) of late Prof Sheikh. Laying emphasis on more public support to his current campaign against demilitarization, Geelani made it clear that the Kashmiris had just one goal---Azadi barai Islam---and, according to him, there was “absolutely no scope” for secularism in the “freedom movement”.

Strongly dismissing New Delhi’s latest offer of talks with the Kashmiri leadership---received enthusiastically by major mainstream parties as also a positive nod from Mirwaiz---Geelani asserted that implementation of the UN resolutions was the “one and the only one solution to the Kashmir dispute”. At all of his gatherings in the last few days, Geelani has repeatedly suggested that with his tacit approval of Home Minister P Chidambarm’s offer of bilateral dialogue, Mirwaiz had violated not only the Hurriyat’s birth day rider but also an agreement signed by leaders of the two factions in June 2008. According to him, Mirwaiz had accepted in black-and-white that his faction would not participate in any bilateral dialogue process with India or Pakistan.

In his keynote address at a seminar organized by his political outfit Muslim League, former Hizbullah commander Mushtaq-ul-Islam made a frontal attack on the Hurriyat (Mirwaiz) leaders----Prof Bhat, Bilal Lone, Maulana Ansari and Fazal Haq---with the allegation that their activities were harmful for the “freedom movement”. Dukhtaraan chief, Asiya Andrabi has expressed identical views in a couple of these conferences and asked for isolating the “traitors”. Architect of last year’s unification process of the Hurriyat factions, Shabir Shah today thundered at Muslim League seminar that it was “high time to identify and isolate the traitors”.

In his obvious attack on the Mirwaiz lieutenants, Shabir Shah did not name any “traitors” but asserted that there was “absolutely no scope of any quiet diplomacy or bilateral talks” in the Valley’s separatist camp. He claimed that New Delhi’s and Omar Abdullah-led coalition government’s latest refrain of dialogue with the Kashmiri leaders was “patently contrary to the Hurriyat constitution and last year’s agreement between two factions of the amalgamation”. Informed sources insist that some constituents of Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat were in full agreement with the views being publicly expressed by Mr Geelani and constituents of his alliance.

Even the separatists, who have maintained neutrality and have stayed away from joining either faction of the conglomerate that split in 2003, have begun to lend support to Geelani’s ideology. Significantly, Jamiat Ahle-Hadith chief Maulana Showkat---commonly known as Yasin Malik’s friend and Geelani’s detractor---today said at the two-day conference of his organization that there was no point in participating in secret diplomacy or bilateral talks. Using Geelani’s, Asiya’s and Shabir Shah’s phraseology verbatim, Maulana Showkat dismissed the UPA government’s offer of Delhi-Srinagar talks as a “completely futile exercise”.

Stressing on Pakistan’s participation and making it a tripartite process, Maulana Showkat asserted that the Kashmir problem’s solution lay in nothing but implementation of the UN resolutions. According to him, people of the state should be given right of self-determination, asking them whether they were for accession to Pakistan or India.

Mirwaiz has, meanwhile, attended a meeting with the Pakistani High Commissioner at New Delhi today, raising speculation of his visit to Islamabad in a few days. His faction of the Hurriyat is meeting here on Wednesday next to select the leaders of Mirwaiz-led delegation. Playing down frontal attacks from the radical camp, Mirwaiz has not so far defended his colleagues who chose to remain in oblivion during last year’s Amarnath turbulence.

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BJP kettle calling the Hurriyat pot black!
When Chancellors and Pro Chancellors fail, Vice Chancellors can be no different

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 14: Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s visit to the Kashmir University (KU) campus, inspection of Iqbal Library and a fiery speech at a gathering of the students and officials has stirred a hornet’s nest in the BJP. MLA and President of the party, Ashok Khajuria did not waste a minute in demanding action against Vice Chancellor Prof Riyaz Punjabi. He has publicly complained that Chief Minister and Pro Chancellor Omar Abdullah had allowed KU to become ‘a den of anti-Indian propaganda’ by permitting radical separatists like Geelani to address students and officials.

Fact of the matter is that almost all Chancellors (Governors) and Pro Chancellors (Chief Ministers) have failed to discharge their responsibility of protecting the sanctity of the institutions of learning in the strife-torn Jammu & Kashmir in the last two decades. Understandably, the Vice Chancellors of KU and Jammu University (JU) have either played the politics of appeasement or completely surrendered before the actors whose politics has been patently parochial. Communal and regional divide between two faiths and provinces has been the corner stone of this politics that has been flourishing in the name of democracy and functional autonomy of the universities.

KU is better placed in the sense that its students do not have a recognized union since 1980s and its teachers have not directly practiced party politics on the campus. Services of then lecturer of nuclear physics, Dr Ayub Thakur were terminated after he escorted some leaders of the Iranian revolution in the Valley, organized a rally of students and staff on the campus 25 years ago. In 1990-92, Prof Abdul Ahad Wani of the Department of Law and Mohammad Shafi Khan of the Department of Persian associated themselves with JKLF and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen respectively. While as Wani was gunned down, allegedly by guerrillas of a rival outfit, Khan has been continuously in jail.

Dukhtaraan-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi’s brother, Dr Anaytullah Andrabi, gave up his job at KU and settled in London over a decade ago. Students and members of faculty have been in the forefront of anti-India and pro-Azadi feelings---and occasionally demonstrations---but they have not formally joined parties the way quite a number of their counterparts in JU have done in the winter capital. Former VC Prof Jalees Tareen had observed at an official function that KU had the distinction of being the country’s one-odd university which had not slogans of political parties painted on its boundary walls.

Jalees paradoxically headed to an unceremonious exit as he asserted to enforce discipline by disturbing a powerful lobby of academics and students “indulging in objectionable political practice”.

Things phenomenally deteriorated during the tenures of his successors to the extent that one of the Professors of the Department of Law confronted former Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, denigrated him as “an advocate of Indian forces” and asked him to “shut up and sit down” on occasion of the inauguration of KU’s Convocation Hall three years ago. This all happened not only in presence of the host and VC, Prof Abdul Wahid Qureishi, but also the chief guest and Chancellor, Governor S K Sinha.

Authorities at a lower level maintain that no action can be taken against the “pro-Azadi” faculty and students until one was initiated against the political practitioners in JU. It has been widely observed and pointed out in the last three days that Mr Khajuria has expressed his indignation over Mr Geelani’s Hazratbal visit and sought “restoration of KU’s sanctity” in just three months of the RSS conclave at JU. Nobody appears to be listening to RSS and BJP leaders’ argument that RSS had hired JU’s Zorawar Singh Auditorium against “cash payment” and that there was nothing “anti-national” at the gathering.

The bigger fact remains that a large number of political practitioners, including those of JU’s different faculties, participated in the congregation that was addressed by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP President, Rajnath Singh, and many others from Sangh Parivar, whose politics and beliefs in terms of region and religion have been patently parochial in J&K.

State’s largest political parties, including National Conference, PDP and Congress, have stayed away and creditably made little attempts to tamper with the sanctity of universities in J&K. With the exception of Congress party’s NSUI, they have not even set up student wings at the institutions of learning. On the other hand, Prof Nirmal Singh of the Department of History and Naresh Padha have established and expanded BJP’s student wing, Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) at JU over two decades ago. Prof Virender Gupta (Retd) of the Departments of Physics outsmarted even senior leaders of Prof Bhim Singh’s National Panthers Party while operating the politics of Jammu’s separate statehood from this platform for several years.

Emboldened by encouragement and appeasement from successive governments, Prof Nirmal Singh subsequently rose to become BJP’s state President and participated in four Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, including those of the current year. Having never been on leave, Prof Singh has been continuously working as a regular teacher with JU. He has been, of late, succeeded as state President of BJP by Mr Kahjuria but has been continuously and proudly working for the party.

Prof Singh found another BJP ideologue in Prof Hari Om of the Department of History who worked more for a party than his university until he made a volte face last year and shifted his loyalties to Congress. He is continuing as head of his department’s Maharaja Gulab Singh Chair in JU. After her not-so-active association with the party, Prof Nirmal Gupta of the Department of Economics joined BJP during Amarnath land row in 2008, months before she reached superannuation at JU. In this war of black kettles and pots, Prof Singh and Prof Hari Om have been taking objection to three of the KU professors enjoying the freedom of making India bashing at international conferences, including few organized by United Nations.

Expecting a government, that has failed to appoint a VC for Islamic University of Science & Technology, Awantipore, in the last 10 months and allowed a PDP promotee to continue in office for 15 months after expiry of his term, may be naïveté. It was only then Chief Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who used his powers as Pro Chancellor and appointed two commissions---one headed by former IGP J&K, L D Thakur, and another by eminent diplomat and one-time VC of Aligarh Muslim University, Badaruddin Tayyabji---respectively to inquire into a rift between Prof Abdul Ahad Wani and Prof Saifuddin Soz that had affected the academic atmosphere at KU and to propose plans for the university’s academic development.

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EARLY TIMES IMPACT

Speaker asks CS to close unauthorized kilns in Budgam
‘Nexus between officials and brick kiln owners not acceptable in a civilized society’

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

JAMMU, Nov 12: Taking suo moto cognizance of Early Times campaign against ecological vandalism in Kashmir valley, Speaker of Legislative Assembly, Mohammad Akbar Lone, has asked Chief Secretary, S S Kapur, to close down all unauthorized brick kilns in Budgam district. He has made it clear on the head of the administration and state bureaucracy that a “nexus between the departments and the brick kiln owners” was not acceptable in a civilized society.

In an environmental series in its issues dated October 8th, 9th and 13th, Early Times had reported in detail how as many as 155 brick kilns had been set up in Budgam district in brazen violation of over a dozen laws and the same were operating without license and necessary Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO) from J&K State Pollution Control Board (PCB).

Highly placed sources in the state government said that Chief Secretary S S Kapur has received Speaker’s DO NO: LA/J/Spk/06/09 dated 10-11-2009, inviting his attention to wanton ecological vandalism in Budgam district and asking him to close down all unauthorized brick kilns. Speaker is understood to have written to the CS that during a recent tour in Budgam district, he had learned from complaining delegations and observed personally that a large number of brick kilns had been set up “in utter violation of the prescribed rules and regulations in connivance with the concerned departments, thereby causing a lot of inconvenience to the people there”.

“Such a tendency needs to be curbed with a heavy hand to save the state from the cruel hands of the said mafia. This issue, it may be pointed here, was also carried by a leading newspaper, namely EARLY TIMES repeatedly to draw the attention of the authorities at the helm (copies of the relevant press clippings are enclosed for ease of reference) but unfortunately such a serious issue has not been taken care of till date”, Speaker has written to Mr Kapur.

“As a matter of fact, the life of the adjacent people has become miserable by way of emitting the health hazardous intoxicants in the shape of harmful gases by these kilns. Moreover the pollution caused by these brick kilns besides making the life hell has to a large extent damaged the paddy fields and orchards in the area. If this menace continues, there may not be any land available with our future generations for agricultural purposes’, Speaker has recorded in his letter and pointed out Government was spending huge amounts out of state exchequer on functioning of the departments responsible for environmental protection and enforcement of other laws being violated.

“The concern shown by the people of these villages is genuine and justified and needs your kind intervention to ensure a proper and timely action so that the jinx of destruction and disturbance of the natural conservation of environment in these villages could be restricted at the earliest”, Speaker has written and asked Chief Secretary to constitute a committee, comprising officers of good reputation and integrity, “to conduct a thorough probe and find out reasons for setting up of these unauthorized and illegal brick kilns in this area and submit a report to this effect to you within a stipulated period of one month, enabling the state government to take further necessary steps to check this menace forthwith so that the local people would take a sigh of relief from the cruel jaws of enemies of the nature”. Mr Kapur has been asked to furnish a report of the said committee to the Speaker.

In the environmental series, that has for the first time influenced Speaker of Legislative Assembly to make a wake-up call on the Chief Secretary, this correspond had reported in detail how officials of different government departments---notably PCB, Police, Revenue, Environment & Remote Sensing, Power Development Department, Industries, Geology & Mining, Irrigation, PHE and Commercial Taxes---had conveniently shut their eyes to establishment and operation of as many as 155 unauthorized and completely illegal brick kilns in Budgam. It had been reported, on the public complaints and source inputs, that a number of officers directly responsible for violation of 12 particular laws had been collecting bribes, in cash and kind, from the operators of the unauthorized brick kilns and leaving their business intact.

It had also been reported in detail how these kilns had been emitting carcinogenic and other gases, dangerously harmful to human and animal life, agriculture and horticulture, while using the static iron chimneys banned by Supreme Court of India over four years go and also substandard fuel including rubber tyres.

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Geelani gatecrashes into KU, delivers lecture on Azadi
Takes oath from students, calls NC etc ‘murderers of Kashmiris’

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 11: For the first time in his 50-year-long political career, separatist hardliner, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, today forced his entry into the campuses of University of Kashmir, described Jammu & Kashmir as a “disputed territory”, delivered a lecture on Azadi, took an oath of working for the state’s ‘freedom’ from India from a congregation of students and called Pro Vice Chancellor Omar Abdullah and his party, National Conference, as the “murderers of the Kashmiris”.

Going strictly according to his much publicized programme of addressing a congregation of the students and employees of the University of Kashmir, Hurriyat (G) Chairman and senior Jamaat-e-Islami ideologue, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, drove straight to the Hazratbal campus and forced his entry through a nominal Police barrier. Attracting a thick number of students, Geelani gate-crashed into the campus and addressed a multitude of students in front of Iqbal Library. Reports said that hundreds of students of different post-graduate courses and members of the University staff formed Geelani’s audience.

In his fiery speech, just 200 yards from Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s mausoleum, Geelani called Chief Minister and KU Pro Chancellor Omar Abdullah’s National Conference (NC), Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP, Congress and other pro-India political parties as the “murderers of the Kashmiris” and held them responsible for strengthening “Indian occupation” on Jammu & Kashmir. Obviously in a quick reaction to the rival Hurriyat leader Prof Abdul Gani Bhat’s suggestion of all mainstream and separatist organizations working out a joint formula for resolution of the Kashmir crisis, Geelani asserted that there was “absolutely no meeting ground” between the two.

“Pro-India parties including National Conference, PDP and Congress have their hands soaked with the blood of innocent Kashmiris. Hurriyat is representing the poor freedom-loving people. How can both meet, share a platform and work on a joint formula?”, Geelani asked his enthusiastic audiences. He asserted that “one Lakh Kashmiris” had not laid down their lives for autonomy, self-rule or former Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf’s 4-point formula. According to him, a lasting and formidable solution lay in nothing other than implementation of the 60-year-old UN resolution, asking people of undivided state of Jmmu & Kashmir whether the were in favour of accession to India or Pakistan.

Geelani claimed that New Delhi’s current suggestions of dialogue with the Kashmiris were the result of world pressure on India. “This is all, in fact, a ploy to hoodwink the world, particularly the United Nations”, Geelani said and asserted that there was neither sincerity nor seriousness in Government of India’s refrain of holding a dialogue with the Kashmiris. According to him, the first test of India’s sincerity would be declaring entire Jammu & Kashmir as a “disputed territory” and withdrawing troops from J&K.

Amid shouting of pro-freedom slogans, Geelani took an oath from the multitude of students and University employees to work for “freedom from India” and asked them to form a union that, according to his desire, would work for Islam and Azadi. He got an affirmation from his audience.

Justifying Hurriyat’s frequent calls for shutdown, Geelani said that a hartal was the “last weapon in our hands, to register our protest against India’s occupation and human rights abuse of her armed forces”. He said that militants were doing their own job with their arms while as Hurriyat was engaged in a peaceful struggle for freedom.

Geelani, nevertheless, complained that the Kashmiris were poor in their resolution as, only last year, hundreds of thousands of them had demanded freedom from India on the streets but in quick succession same numbers of the people had participated in the Assembly elections conducted by Election Commission of India. “Be resolute and consistent in your demand of Azadi”, Geelani advised the Kashmiris.

On his departure, Geelani was taken into custody by Police near Sheikh Abdullah’s mausoleum and whisked away to Humhama Police Station. Valley has witnessed this drill, which invariably follows with Geelani’s release, over a dozen times since he was let off from a formal imprisonment few months back.

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Geelani, Mirwaiz trash Omar’s monologue on dialogue
Hurriyat dares CM to pass 6-point formula in J&K Assembly

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 10: Both factions of Hurriyat Conference have pooh-poohed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s PDP-brand refrain on New Delhi’s dialogue with the separatist leadership even as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has dared him to pass his 6-point formula in J&K Legislative Assembly if head of the coalition government was really sincere in his recently made public utterances.

Hardline Hurriyat chief, Geelani has characteristically trashed union Home Minister P Chidambarm and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s newfound refrain on “quiet diplomacy” and asserted that there was, as usual, neither sincerity nor seriousness in the ruling coalition’s statements. “It’s all an exercise in futility. Bilateral talks on Kashmir problem have invariably ended up in failure. Real solution lies in tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris or implementation of the UN resolutions”, Geelani told local news agency, Kashmir News Service.

Geelani said that his faction of the Hurriyat Conference would respond positively and engage itself in a dialogue process if Government of India declared Kashmir as a disputed territory and sounded sincere in holding talks with the Kashmiri leadership. He asserted that Hurriyat would never participate in the talks which ran contrary to its constitution. “They are, in fact, misleading the world with such hollow utterances”, Geelani is reported to have said in reaction to the coalition leadership’s recent statements on “quiet diplomacy” and willingness to talk to all cross-sections of public opinion, including the separatist leadership.

Refusing to accept it as the Government’s obligation, Geelani said that an international passport had been issued to him first time after 1981 but it was all meaningless as, according to him, there was continuous Police siege around his house in Hyderpora and he was not being allowed to budge an inch outside the premises. He has, of late, approached J&K High Court, seeking “withdrawal of the Police siege”. A commissioner appointed by the court today made an inspection but did not found any Police presence. Geelani’s spokesman Ayaz Akbar claimed that Police had lifted the siege minutes before the commissioner’s arrival.

In his immediate reaction to the Chief Minister’s statement made at his news conference in Jammu on Monday, Mirwaiz too claimed that there was little sincerity and seriousness in the coalition leaders’ refrain of holding talks with the Kashmiri leadership. “If National Conference and PDP are really serious in their public utterances, which keep changing with every passing moment, they better pass Hurriyat’s 6-point formula in their Assembly”, Chairman of so-called moderate faction of the Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said. He, significantly, did not sound to be critical of “quiet diplomacy” and said that Hurriyat was not afraid of “any talks whether held publicly or secretly”.

Informed sources, meanwhile, revealed to Early Times that Mirwaiz had conveyed his “displeasure” to the UPA leadership in New Delhi over “derailing the dialogue process well before it has started”. He is understood to have taken umbrage over reports that claimed the Hurriyat chief had met Home Minister Chidambaram last month before his departure for London.

Reports from south Kashmir said that another prominent separatist leader, Shabir Shah, has asked NC and PDP leaders to step down and join the ranks of the separatist leadership if they were sincere in holding talks with “pro-freedom leaders”.

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Mufti’s khul ja SIM SIM and Geelani’s ghar kab jaoge?
Why both slogans are failing to generate Ragda-III in Kashmir

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 8: Apparently taking advantage of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s limited access to understanding of ground realities in Valley and the level of confidence he has exuded over the last 10 months of his maiden regime, mainstream as well as the separatist opposition have been floating assortments of issues and non-issues in Jammu & Kashmir. Creation of a new theatre of regional and communal divide has been, however, elusive for both after the resolution of Amarnath Shrine Board land allotment crisis last year.

Alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian shook the Valley for a couple of months in the middle of current year but revelation of a lady doctor’s unethical act of fudging the vaginal smears with a nefarious design took the sting out from the outrage in a few weeks. The outcry, locally known as Ragda-II, faded out further after a team of forensic experts from AIIMS and CFSL exhumed the bodies in presence of a local doctor, nominated by Majlis-e-Mushawarat Shopian, and, according to reports not refuted by CBI, found biological evidence of the unmarried girl’s virginity.

Characters of a love-hate relationship, PDP patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Hurriyat (G) supremo Syed Ali Shah Geelani, have been remarkably in a competition to steel the show with identical issues. Interestingly, none other than PDP’s ideologue and former Chief Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, has solved the mystery of this uniformity by revealing in a television programme last week that his party was doing the service of “occupying the space Hurriyat would have captured”.

Geelani had the advantage of being in detention when Mufti and his party were humbled by hundreds of thousands of the Kashmiris by their proscribed participation in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. In September 2008, PDP had taken the lead over Hurriyat by claiming that nobody in the Valley would participate in the elections as the Kashmiris, according to it, had not been taken on board by Governor N N Vohra’s establishment while resolving the land crisis and inking a deal with “representatives of just one community and region”.

A host of speculations with regard to security of Durbar Move staff failed to prevent the Kashmiri employees from proceeding to the winter capital. Not one untoward incident happened for six months of the seat of power being in Jammu.

Ever since the two elections, that swapped the places of National Conference (NC) and PDP, Mufti’s party appears to be confused whether to emerge as NC’s secular alternative or to exist and expand as Hurriyat’s Muslim-centric, Valley-centric mainstream parallel. It has, in the process, failed in both. Its silver lining, admittedly, lies in the fact that the NC’s cadres are as demoralized and disempowered as in previous six years, the government by many indications appears to be that of any party other than the NC and Congress and the anti-incumbency factor is swelling, though not phenomenally in the first year of the coalition regime.

Nobody in the ruling coalition appears to be sensitive to things like most of the government jobs being grabbed by people through corrupt practices and the writ of mainstream as well as the secessionist opposition running far larger than Omar Abdullah’s government and party---from matters of transfers and appointments to government contracts and supply orders.

Chief Minister, and consequently all Ministers of his Council, have been playing the politics of apology and defence as most of their policies and decisions seem to be influenced either by men of slapdash knowledge about Kashmir’s politics or by dangerously subjective reports and editorial comments in newspapers. In his futile attempts of outwitting arch rival PDP, Omar Abdullah has spent more time in calling for dialogue with the largely marginalized separatist leadership than interacting with the ordinary man in Valley and Jammu, who has given him the mandate and responsibility of solving his mundane problems.

From continued recession in Pakistan’s terror market---that is meteorically increasing with every singe blast in Punjab and NWFP and military action in FATA and PATA---to the aftermath of J&K elections, Omar has all indicators of the situation in his favour. He seems to be more comfortable with his Big Brother in Delhi than Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mufti Sayeed and Farooq Abdullah. Why should he be more loyal than the king that once was?

Even a lay man on the street in Srinagar knows that Kashmir’s political resolution can come only in a meaningful dialogue process that ideally means between BJP-led rightist leadership in Delhi and a strong military leadership in Islamabad. Delhi’s and Islamabad’s casual labourers in Srinagar and Jammu do have the role of playing just background music to any settlement worked out by the two countries.

It does not need four eyes to see that PDP is failing even in making a big issue of the ban on prepaid mobile services that has directly affected over three million people in the state. More subscribers have perhaps realized that Home Minister Chidambaram’s decision has been seriously influenced by security concerns New Delhi would hardly compromise. They seem to be more concerned over poor connectivity and speech quality in J&K than an end to prepaid services.

On the other hand, Geelani has successfully hijacked Mufti’s slogan of demilitarization and his call for district-wise shutdown has evoked some response but, for the time being and months of near future, a major turbulence in the Valley is nowhere in sight.

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Geelani spits on Farooq’s offer of dialogue
‘Sheikh Abdullah and NC are traitors who sold off Kashmir to India’

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Nov 7: Treating the National Conference patriarch and Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy Dr Farooq Abdullah’s advice of accepting New Delhi’s offer of resolving the Kashmir crisis through a negotiation process, separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani today asserted that the “Kashmiri peoples’ struggle for freedom from India” would continue in absence of any a “meaningful dialogue process”. He called Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, his progeny and political party “traitors responsible for selling off Kashmir to India” and claimed that men like Farooq Abdullah had no business to send him offers and advices.

Addressing a Muslim League sponsored seminar in memory of “martyrs of Jammu” (men of Muslim community killed in communal riots of 1947), Chairman of the hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference and former Jamaat-e-Islami ideologue, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, lashed out at Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, his progeny and National Conference (NC) and held them responsible for having sold off Kashmir to India for power. Obviously responding to Dr Abdullah’s offer of joining a dialogue process with the Centre, that had come at the union cabinet Minister’s news conference last evening, Geelani asserted that “traitors like Farooq Abdullah” had no business to send him advices and offers of a dialogue on the Kashmir dispute.

Geelani said that Sheikh Abdullah, his party and progeny had stabbed the Kashmiris in their back by “selling off Kashmir to India for power”. “We have no ambitions for power. Ours is the struggle for freedom. It will continue till we achieve our goal”, Geelani said and sweared that he would never commit treason with the people of Kashmir and “thousands of martyrs who have contributed their blood to the freedom struggle”. He said that Farooq Abdullah and others of his clan were the messengers of secular politics and added that there was no room for “la deen siasat” (secularism) in the “Kashmiris’ freedom struggle”.

Geelani asserted that his fresh campaign for total demilitarization in Jammu & Kashmir was phase one of a greater struggle. He said that he would not take rest until the last Indian soldier was withdrawn from Jammu & Kashmir. “Those advising me for mercy to the Kshmiris have brought in Army and strengthened the Indian occupation on Kashmir. How do they have temerity to advise us on peace and dialogue?” Geelani asked with an obvious reference to Dr Abdullah.

Commenting on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s recent offer of dialogue, made in Srinagar last fortnight, Geelani said that Government of India had never initiated a “sincere and meaningful” dialogue process with the Kashmiris. “It is all bound to be an exercise in futility if held like a host of dialogue processes witnessed in the past”, Geelani added. He cautioned pro-dialogue Kashmiri separatist leaders to realize that their mistake (of holding talks with the Centre without J&K being declared as disputed and without associating Pakistan with the process) would have the potential of making the Kashmiris cry for centuries.

Geelani said that if Government of India was really sincere in resolving the Kashmir dispute by way of a dialogue process, it should immediately involve Pakistan and make it a tripartite initiative, begin withdrawal of its troops from J&K and release all political detainees.

The seminar was addressed on identical lines by President of High Court Bar Association, Mian Abdul Qayoom, Dukhtaraan-e-Millat supreme Asiya Andrabi and other separatist leaders and ideologues.

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