Farooq blasts separatist leaders over shutdowns, stone pelting

NC patriarch also snubs Shariq, Mustafa Kamal on their anti-India statements

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 5: National Conference President and Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy Resources, Dr Farooq Abdullah, today came down heavily on the Valley’s separatist leaders and held them responsible for leading the Kashmiris to a quagmire of devastation. He even did not spare his own senior party colleagues, Sharief-ud-din Shariq and Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, over frequently issuing anti-India and anti-Police statements.

Addressing a remembrance function on the NC founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s 105^th birth anniversary at Hazratbal, Dr Abdullah asserted that some political leaders had sacrificed everything for the prosperity, development and dignity of the people of Jammu & Kashmir but there were also politicians who forced the hapless people to sacrifice everything for making their own family fortunes.

Dr Abdullah said that violence and crass forms of resistance, like armed insurgency and stone pelting, had been employed by the Valley’s separatist leadership as tools to win freedom from India. But both, according to him, were unacceptable to the civilized world. He claimed that the separatist leaders and their followers had not only failed to achieve anything but had also pushed Kashmir in a morass of misery and misfortune. While the leaders themselves had achieved their personal comforts and built fortunes for their own children, the ordinary Kashmiris had been forced to suffer for petty morsels of food.

Three-times former Chief Minister, Dr Abdullah said that the separatist leaders had forced the poor Kashmiris to shut their schools and shops for months and years together but, on the other hand, they had sent their own children to foreign countries to pursue higher studies, jobs and businesses. Mentioning hardliner separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani by name, Farooq said that the Hurriyat chief would religiously stick to a fabulous menu even in jail but a lousy spinach was a luxury for the poor Kashmiris. He said that continuous shutdown for five months this year had not only affected the development and economy but had also ruined the future of poor students who wanted to pursue their studies and compete with students of other Indian states in different examinations and job opportunities.

Dr Abdullah said that anarchical street clashes, stone pelting, closure of shops and schools and torching of school buses---justified by the Hurriyat leaders as the Kashmiris’ only tool of resistance and attracting the world attention---would simply add to the miseries of the people of the state, particularly those living in Kashmir valley. He argued that dialogue in fact was the only tool to make one’s point and achieve something in any conflict. He asserted that NC would continue its 60-year-long struggle to achieve what Sheikh Abdullah had envisioned for the people of this embattled state.

Restoration of greater autonomy, he contended, was the best possible solution of the J&K unrest. He hastened to add that if any other individual or political party came forward with a better solution “that must be all-inclusive and acceptable to people of all regions of the state”, NC would have no hesitation to accept it. He said that he and his party would give every sacrifice to realize Sher-e-Kashmir’s dream of a prosperous, autonomous state of Jammu & Kashmir.

A day after Geelani called upon the Kashmiris to reject the proposed Panchayat and local body elections with “total boycott”, Dr Abdullah asked the people to participate in the grass-root democratic process in a big way. He asked his party workers to set themselves into the election mode and make preparations for yet another victory at the hustings right from today.

On this occasion, Dr Abdullah did not even spare his own senior party colleagues for frequently issuing anti-India, anti-Police and anti-security forces statements without ascertaining facts of the incidents brought to their notice. He snubbed NC’s Member of Parliament from North Kashmir, Sharief-ud-din Shariq, as well as younger brother and MLA Hazratbal, Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, over their passion of issuing statements that had the potential of discrediting the state and the central governments and demoralizing Police and security forces who were working under extreme hostile conditions from different quarters.

Shariq had taken lead over all separatist and mainstream politicians in discrediting the October 29^th shootout at Qamarwari as “cold blooded murder of innocent youth”. He was later followed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Geelani who called for a shutdown on December 4^th against the encounter and called it a “deliberate murder”. One of Shariq’s relatives was among the three youth killed by Police after they allegedly gunned down a Constable in broad daylight and began leaving alongwith his AK-47 rifle.

Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who has been extremely cautious in his remarks about the separatists, also lashed out at them on incidents like sustained stone pelting, shutdowns and now burning of a school bus. “Sher-e-Kashmir never instigated his followers to shut businesses and educational institutions and burn down the school buses”, Omar asserted. He too said that the separatists had been pursuing their own agenda of vested interest and claimed that it was he who had convinced the highest leadership in New Delhi that Kashmir was a political problem and it required a political resolution.

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