Prof Gani’s ‘truth’ stirs hornets’ nest in separatist camp

Guerrilla groups call him “Indian agent”; Geelani camp tightlipped

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jan 3: Hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, his political alma mater Jamaat-e-Islami, his seven-year-old Tehreek-e-Hurriyat as well as his faction of the Hurriyat Conference today did not react to the senior separatist leader Prof Abdul Gani Bhat’s admission that most of the Kashmiri intellectuals and politicians had been eliminated by none other than Kashmiri militants. A number of radical guerrilla groups, however, dismissed Bhat as an “Indian agent” and charged him with committing “sabotage of the freedom movement”.

Local news agency, KNS, reported that someone who identified himself as Samee-ul-Haq and claimed that he was the spokesman of an alliance of three guerrilla outfits---Al-Nasireen, Farzandan-e-Millat and Shuhada Brigade---called it on telephone and reacted sharply to Prof Gani’s statement. At a JKLF-sponsored seminar here yesterday, Prof Gani had stated that Kashmiri intellectuals and political leaders like Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone and Prof Abdul Ahad Wani had been killed by “none other than our own people”. According to him, Indian armed forces or Police had no involvement in these assassinations.

In the last 21 years of armed insurgency in Kashmir, Hurriyat Conference and all other separatist and militant groups have held the Indian forces, intelligence agencies and Police responsible for each and every civilian killing. This is for the fist time that an insider has spilled the beans and asserted in unambiguous terms that “our own people (militants), not Indian forces or Police”, have gunned down intellectuals, religious scholars and politicians like Mirwaiz Farooq, Ab Gani Lone and Prof Ahad Wani.

According to KNS, the militant alliance spokesman described Prof Gani as a “saboteur” of the Valley’s separatist movement and alleged that the “task of sabotaging the freedom movement has been assigned to him by none other than India”. The spokesman said that everybody in Kashmir knew it well as to who killed whom and why. “Generating a public debate over it would only be harmful to the freedom movement”. He warned Prof Gani to desist from causing damage to the “freedom struggle” and said that the Hurriyat leader’s ‘anti-movement machinations’ were no secret for the militant alliance.

The spokesman attributed Prof Gani’s utterances to the latter’s animosity with Geelani and warned that he would not be allowed to cause any more damage to the Kashmiri’s “freedom struggle”.

In a separate statement, officiating Chairperson of Dukhtaraan-e-Millat, Rifat Fatima, labeled Prof Gani as well as his Hurriyat colleague, Bilal Gani Lone, as “Indian agents” and alleged that both were working for the “Indian agencies” with the sole motive of causing damage to the Kashmiris’ “freedom struggle”. She said that both the Hurriyat leaders had been exposed with their own “anti-movement statements” on Sunday. She further alleged that seminars like that of JKLF yesterday were being organized by the “Indian agencies” only to harm the “freedom struggle”. The real freedom leaders, she said, were not being allowed by the government to assemble or utter a word, let alone addressing seminars.

Significantly, there was immediately no reaction to Prof Gani’s statement from his bete noire, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, his political alma mater, Jamaat-e-Islami, his current organisation, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, or his faction of the Hurriyat Conference. Prof Gani’s obvious target---formidable militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, that in 1990s faced allegations of killing Mirwaiz Farooq and Prof Wani---also did not make comment till late tonight. Observers were still expecting a bitter reaction from Hizbul Mujahideen and Muzaffarabad-based militant alliance United Jihad Council.

Meanwhile, Prof Gani today told NDTV that he firmly stood by whatever he had spoken at the JKLF seminar on Sunday. He maintained that he had told the gathering a ‘truth’ which he would not withdraw under any threat or pressure.

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