On 5th assassination in Sopore, Geelani wants Mufti to act

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, June 14: With the fifth civilian assassination in a row in Sopore in less than a month, separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Sunday said that Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had forfeited his right to rule in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to official sources, an unidentified gunman shot dead one-time JKLF militant Merajuddin Dar, who had been running a wholesale poultry business in his Badami Bagh neighbourhood after his release from jail in 1993, close to his residence and shop at 9.00 a.m. Residents and family members rushed him to Sub District Hospital of Sopore where doctors declared him as 'brought dead'.

Carried out in broad daylight in a militant-infested locality, the fifth assassination of its kind in Sopore in less than a month spread a fresh wave of terror. The apple town of Sopore was already observing shutdown to protest an identical killing of a Geelani loyalist Khursheed Ahmad Bhat of Bumai when the news of Merajuddin Dar broke in the forenoon. Like the last five killings, no guerrilla outfit claimed responsibility for Dar's assassination.

Current killing spree by unidentified gunmen commenced last month after an unknown guerrilla group 'Lashkar-e-Islam' asked for total closedown of mobile telephony through posters in Sopore. It threatened to eliminate anyone daring to defy the diktat. As the seven day deadline passed, a chain of firing and grenades started. Of the five civilians killed till date, two were associated with the mobile telephony, two more were Geelani’s separatist followers and one was a militant-turned-trader.

Geelani has labeled the assassinations as "the handiwork of the Indian secret agencies" even as many people in Sopore insist that counter-insurgents could not operate freely in a separatist hub like Sopore. A section of the population has alleged that the assassins of Sopore were "government sponsored counter-terrorists".

While expressing his deep grief and shock over another civilian killing (Mehraj-ud-din Dar) in Sopore, Geelani said the civilian killings "by the government gunmen" had taken an ugly turn. He said that the Hurriyat Conference, after holding detailed deliberations over this issue, would inform general public about how to deal with this serious situation. Geelani said in a statement that the common people were being "brutally killed" in broad daylight and the government was "watching as a mute spectator". He alleged there was "no moral justification for him to remain in power".

"If he will not do that, then the people will be right to understand that the Indian secret agencies have got full support of the Mufti Sayed government for the bloodshed of the common Kashmiris and that he was playing the role of a facilitator in implementing this plot", Geelani said.

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