Geelani hits back on Farooq, calls him, his family and party ‘traitors’

‘NC responsible for 1947, 1975, 1996 and 2008 treasons’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 6: Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani today made a counter scathing attack on the National Conference supremo Dr Farooq Abdullah and dismissed him, his entire dynasty and political party (NC) as the “real traitors and backstabbers of Kashmiris”. He claimed that Jammu & Kashmir would not have been under “Indian occupation” today if Sheikh Abdullah, his progeny and NC would not have stood by New Delhi during the defining moments in 1947, 1975, 1996 and 2008.

In his fiery reaction to the speeches delivered by the NC top brass at Sheikh Abdullah’s mausoleum at Hazratbal on Sunday, Geelani held Dr Farooq Abdullah, his dynasty and party responsible for Jammu & Kashmir’s miseries and political uncertainty over the last 63 years. He asserted that simply for his hegemony and New Delhi’s good humour, Sheikh Abdullah converted the Muslim Conference into the secular National Conference in 1938. According to Geelani, Sheikh and his party “backstabbed” the Kashmiris way of strengthening “Indian military occupation” in J&K in 1947 when they ratified the Maharaja’s accession to India.

Geelani referred to 1975 (when Sheikh resumed power under Indira-Abdullah Accord), 1987 (when Assembly elections, according to the Hurriyat leader, were rigged), 1996 (when NC contested elections to defeat 7-year-old armed strife) and 2008 (when NC again jumped into the electoral fray to fail a mass agitation) and asserted that Farooq and his party had always “committed treason with the Kashmiris”. He alleged that in all of its regimes since 1947, the Sheikh dynasty and NC committed untold atrocities on the oppressed Kashmiris only to enjoy power under an occupational and colonial set up.

Geelani said it was none other than Dr Abdullah who engineered custodial killing of one-odd voice of dissent to Indira-Abdullah Accord, namely Ghulam Mohammad Bulla of Sopore. Bulla had died in a jail.

He added that it was again none other than Dr Abdullah who signed the death warrant of JKLF leader Maqbool Bhat. Sentenced to death for gunning down a bank manager and a Police official in Handwara area, Bhat had been executed in Tihar Jail on February 11, 1984, when Dr Abdullah was Chief Minister of J&K. Geelani said that Dr Abdullah ignited insurgency by resorting to “massive rigging” in the Assembly elections of 1987 and later embraced power in 1996 only to defeat the Kashmiris’ armed struggle. He said that in 2008 too, it was none other than Dr Abdullah who came forward to contest the Assembly elections and failed a mass agitation in the Valley.

Geelani claimed that India was ruling Kashmir only because of Dr Abdullah, his family and party. “As long as India has Farooq Abdullah in Kashmir, it would never regard any democratic means adopted by the Kashmiris to fight their political battle”, Geelani said.

In his rejoinder to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s question---‘If Geelani has no problem in meeting with Indian Parliamentarians, why should he not meet with Government?---the Hurriyat chief argued that the separatist leaders would continue to interact with any non-official delegations from New Delhi. He made it clear on Chief Minister that he would have no hesitation in meeting with the official Indian envoys the day New Delhi declared J&K a disputed territory and abandoned its refrain of J&K being its integral part.

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