3 LeT militants killed in Kupwara encounter

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_____

JAMMU, Jan 30: Three militants of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, believed to be Pakistani nationals, got killed in an encounter with security forces in Lolab valley of Kupwara district in northern Kashmir on Saturday.

Deputy Inspector General of Police, North Kashmir, Gareeb Dass told STATE TIMES that Army and Kupwara District Police launched a cordon-and-search operation after receiving specific information about the movement of a group of foreign militants at Lohar Mohalla of Dardpora, Kupwara, late on Friday evening. He said that one of the holed up militants was killed in the encounter but two of his associates escaped towards a height.

In the afternoon on Saturday, troops and Police established contract with the two hiding militants. Both of them were killed in the three-hour-long gunbattle. DIG identified one of the three militants as Usama alias Zarar Bhai and said that he was a commander of LeT. He said that three bodies, alongwith equal number of AK rifles, and a huge quantity of other arms and ammunition was serized from the two sites of the encounter. No civilian or security forces or Police personnel was killed or injured during the operation.

DIG said that the three militants were part of a group of seven Pakistani cadres of LeT who had infiltrated into the Valley in July 2015. The group had been in movement in Kandi belt of Kupwara. “Search is underway for remaining four militants of this group. We are confidant to wipe out this whole group very soon”, DIG said. He said that some residents gathered in the village in the forenoon and they caused a law and order problem with a possible aim of disrupting the operation. However, the demonstrators were dispersed with baton charge and the operation continued.

Reports from Kupwara said that a gathering of the residents clashed with Police and security forces while pelting stones and shouting pro-Azadi slogans. After the operation concluded, the bodies were handed over to the local Wakaf committee which organised the funeral rites in the evening. Shops and vehicular traffic remained shut down in Dardpora and some other parts of Lolab for the whole day.

END

After calling IAS officer ‘uloo ka patha’, trade union leader threatens DSEK’s gherao

Pressure mounts on Govt. to detach JKTF President, withdraw his ‘VIP status’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_____

JAMMU, Jan 27:  Even as a section of the bureaucracy is said to be “shielding and promoting” him, Government is reportedly mulling the transfer and detachment of the Jammu and Kashmir Teachers Forum [JKTF] President Abdul Qayoom Wani from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) at the Civil Secretariat. Wani, who has publicly called the year- 2010 IAS topper and Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) Dr Shah Faesal “chocolate boy” and “Uloo ka patha”, has now threatened to gherao the office of the Head of the Department in Srinagar on January 30.

Wani, who also claims to represent 500,000 Government employees, including 1,20,000 teachers, is primarily a schoolteacher. He is currently holding the office of the incharge coordinator SSA at the Civil Secretariat where, as the head of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC), he has uncontrolled access to the top corridors of power. If highly placed bureaucratic sources are to be believed, the proposal of Wani’s repatriation to DSEK has been moved in a chain of transfers and appointments without reference to his unparliamentary language and threatening tone and tenor against the IAS officer.

While addressing a gathering of his union’s office-bearers and teachers in Srinagar last week, Wani had bitterly assailed Dr Faesal over ordering the reshuffle of some JKTF leaders “in violation of the government’s transfer policy”. “By doing this, he has put his hand straight in the lion’s mouth”, Wani had asserted to the cheering crowd.

Proudly calling himself “a landlord’s son” and suggesting that the IAS officer was from a penurious family background, the JKTF President had further said: “He is no landlord’s son. He should tell us how he acquired properties in Kupwara and Hyderpora (Srinagar). If he doesn’t, I will reveal where his money came from”.

Following these controversial assertions, which have gone viral on social media, Commissioner-Secretary School Education Shaleen Kabra as well as Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma are said to be under pressure of the KAS and the IAS lobby to immediately terminate Wani’s access to Civil Secretariat.

“Bureaucracy has already disliked the VIP status the Chief Secretary has accorded to the former Education Minister Tara Chand’s right hand man. Sharma Sahab has not only given him free access to all the bureaucrats’ and Ministers’ offices but also made him member of some high level committees. He thinks he is another Chief Secretary”, said a senior IAS officer. He expressed apprehension that the trade union leader’s “threats and blackmail” would demoralise the public servants and make a mockery of the Governor’s administration.

Wani has called upon his union members to gherao Directorate of School Education Kashmir on January 30. However, another trade union, J&K General Line Teachers Forum on Wednesday distanced itself from Wani’s call and said that it was “nothing but sabotage to reform and innovative process initiated by Director School Education”. It dismissed the JKTF appeal as “the call of ego and arrogance” and claimed that its purpose was “to only malign the image of the Director”.

Speaking to STATE TIMES, Wani claimed that the purpose of his call was to register “protest against the transfers being made in violation of the Government’s transfer policy”. He said that two of his District Presidents had been transferred within two months of their posting even as the transfer policy did not approve such changes before the mature stay of two years”. He claimed that his objectionable remarks against the Director had been made “off the record” and said that he had no intention to hurt the HOD.

Wani said his “struggle” was against the recently invoked policies of the Government that include posting of a number of “outsiders” (KAS officers) as Joint Directors and banning of the private tuition of the government school-teachers. “We have 13 lakh students in the State. Only 5,000 are taking tuition at the centres set up at High and Higher Secondary Schools. (Former Education Minister) Naeem Akhtar and Director Education misled even the Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. They told him lies and worked against the interests of the teachers as well as the students”, Wani said.

Wani also questioned Mr Akhtar’s decision of subjecting the RET teachers to a screening test years after they had been selected under proper procedure by successive regimes. “As far as the question of the dubious degrees and qualifications from unrecognised institutions is concerned, we have said publicly that such teachers should be terminated at once. But how can they render thousands of RET teachers jobless after years of their service?” Wani asked.

Unfazed by the JKTF threat of gherao, Dr Shah Faesal told STATE TIMES that he had started to clean up the system in his department and he would continue it without succumbing to any pulls, pressures and threats. He dismissed Wani’s allegations of corruption against him as “marks of frustration” and said that on January 30 itself he would be introducing the “Transfer Maila” from Ganderbal.

“It is an innovative governance initiative pioneered by the governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. We will completely eliminate the ages old touts system which has unnerved some self-styled trade union leaders who have been thriving on this business. We will be directly interacting with the teachers in the field and order transfers on the spot as per the guidelines”, Dr Faesal said.

“To begin with, I have ordered just 45 transfers, six of them today. This includes 3 or 4 so-called trade union leaders who for decades have remained posted in non-teaching DIETs. Some of them had even set up their union offices in these DIETs. They have not put in a day of teaching at a school”, Dr Faesal said.

END

[Published in STATE TIMES January 28, 2016]

Kashmir woman Murcyleen Peerzada quits IRF

In 2012 she assisted direction of 'Ek Tha Tiger'; In 2013, she joined Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
_______

JAMMU, Jan 22: Murcyleen Peerzada, 24, a Mumbai-based Kashmiri woman, who hogged headlines last year for her dramatic flight from the glamorous Bollywood to Zakir Naik's religion preaching organisation, on Friday announced to have quit Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

“My association with Dr Zakir Naik's IRF has come to end today and from now I have no longer any association with the ladies wing of IRF. The decision of quitting my association with the organization is a personal one,” Peerzada said in an email to Srinagar-based news gathering agency Kashmir News Service.

“When I came to studying Islam, I didn't know anyone from the field of Dawah, and I was eager to learn it. For this I have joined one of the only Islamic organizations that I knew existed for women that time which was run by Mrs. Zakir Naik", Peerzada said while asserting that her path and that of the IRF did not match anymore.

“That was then and this is now, I part ways with IRF & can't accommodate it anymore. I'm grateful for most of the beneficial knowledge they gave me. However, our paths don't match anymore. I love positivity & creativity. I agree that the parting could be silent, however, since "YRF (Yash Raj Films) to IRF" was a page from my life that was appreciated, I thought it's best to put this development out there. I don't know where Allah will take me next but it's going to be some place amazing and positive I'm sure", she added.

“I will be not leaving Dawah work, just leaving an organization. Dawah work should be positive and peaceful, I strongly believe that. I am attracted to positivity & really want to do more fun & lighter things. I have a long way to go,” she is reported to have said.

Efforts to reach Peerzada and her Mumbai-based businessmen father Feroze Peerzada on telephone did not succeed.

Hailing from a village on the outskirts of the famous apple town of Sopore in northern Kashmir, the Peerzada family enjoyed proximity to the Bollywood bigwig Yash Chopra---a frequent Kashmir visitor who died days after shooting his last film in the Valley, in 2012. Chopra’s YRF had shot some of Bollywood's top box office hits on the picturesque Valley locales.

Then 21, Peerzada made her debut as assistant director of the YRF magnum opus 'Ek Tha Tiger', directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Chopra’s son Aditya Chopra and Sohail Sen. This Indian action spy film had Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif in stellar roles, besides Roshan Seth, Ranvir Shorey and Girish Karnad who played the RAW chief.

In 2013, she was signed up for YRF’s ‘Shuddh Desi Romance’ as a costume assistant director. But since the director Maneesh Sharma liked to take up newcomers for his movies, he asked her to do a screen test. “When I faced the camera, I suddenly felt exposed, emotionally and physically, even though I was wearing a salwar kameez. I felt vulnerable and uncomfortable. I just got up, and said, ‘I don’t want to do this", she told The Indian Express in an interview in August 2014.

Peerzada revealed that Yash Chopra’s death, coupled with Maneesh Sharma’s screen test, transformed her persona. Recluse at her home, she stumbled upon the transcript of one of Zakir Naik's speeches. It changed her life completely. She abandoned her Westernised, flamboyant lifestyle. From a “crazy shopaholic” who would lap up the “most expensive dresses and jeans”, she wore an all-black burqa.

While pursuing a Masters in Islamic Studies with an online university in Qatar, she picked up a thick collection of Hijabs in Dubai and joined Dr Naik's wife Farha as a female Islamic preacher and activist. In the next few months, she began organising female gatherings in Srinagar and preached Naik's puritanical ideology of Islam that runs contrary to the Sufi tradition popular in Kashmir since 14th century A.D.

In 2014, Peerzada organised an Ijtima in Srinagar, close to the venue of a musical concert. Next day she posted on Instagram: "Yesterday there was a musical concert in Kashmir15 minutes away from our conference which was attended by Bollywood actors Sohail Khan and Suniel Shetty. For Kashmir, that’s something rare. We were asked to move our conference so that we may be able to pull a crowd. But look at Allah’s greatness, we gathered a crowd of 4,000 people and the concert a crowd of 200.”

Nouman Ali Khan and Yasmin Mogahed became her role models.

Her tweets are usually re-tweets of Islamic scholars, and most are spiritual, asking people to turn to Allah to solve problems in their lives. “I don’t believe in teaching extremism. I have a very liberal approach towards religion. Angry speeches are not going to eventually appeal to the young, only love and wisdom can. Islam is a religion in controversy, and it needs youngsters like us to reach out to young Muslims in a humourous, light manner. American preacher Nouman Ali Khan cracks jokes in between his talks. That’s how it should be,” she said in an interview. She had a huge following on Instagram.

“They (the media) reduce women to objects that satisfy men and cause only a negative impact in people’s life including social networking sites. All the girls should learn to value themselves and their bodies. Cover up for the sake of Allah! Your body and also your character… My friends aren’t the girls who display themselves to the world, my friends are the girls who say they believe in Allah and prove it every day. They’re the kinds that will Insha Allah reunite with me in jannah. Their goal isn’t ‘boys, parties and fashion’. Their goal is jannah", she once posted.

Peerzada now suggests her "positivity and creativity" is in conflict with Dr Naik's teachings but in her cautiously drafted email she steers clear of being critical to the cleric whose radical preaching provides an inspiration to a huge chunk of the Muslim population in India including Jammu and Kashmir.

END

[Published in today's STATE TIMES]

Kashmir woman Murcyleen Peerzada quits IRF

In 2012 she assisted direction of 'Ek Tha Tiger'; In 2013, she joined Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz 

--------------

JAMMU, Jan 22: Murcyleen Peerzada, 24, a Mumbai-based Kashmiri woman, who hogged headlines last year for her dramatic flight from the glamorous Bollywood to Zakir Naik's religion preaching organisation, on Friday announced to have quit Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

“My association with Dr Zakir Naik's IRF has come to end today and from now I have no longer any association with the ladies wing of IRF. The decision of quitting my association with the organization is a personal one,” Peerzada said in an email to Srinagar-based news gathering agency Kashmir News Service.

“When I came to studying Islam, I didn't know anyone from the field of Dawah, and I was eager to learn it. For this I have joined one of the only Islamic organizations that I knew existed for women that time which was run by Mrs. Zakir Naik", Peerzada said while asserting that her path and that of the IRF did not match anymore.

“That was then and this is now, I part ways with IRF & can't accommodate it anymore. I'm grateful for most of the beneficial knowledge they gave me. However, our paths don't match anymore. I love positivity & creativity. I agree that the parting could be silent, however, since "YRF (Yash Raj Films) to IRF" was a page from my life that was appreciated, I thought it's best to put this development out there. I don't know where Allah will take me next but it's going to be some place amazing and positive I'm sure", she added.

“I will be not leaving Dawah work, just leaving an organization. Dawah work should be positive and peaceful, I strongly believe that. I am attracted to positivity & really want to do more fun & lighter things. I have a long way to go,” she is reported to have said.

Efforts to reach Peerzada and her Mumbai-based businessmen father Feroze Peerzada on telephone did not succeed.

Hailing from a village on the outskirts of the famous apple town of Sopore in northern Kashmir, the Peerzada family enjoyed proximity to the Bollywood bigwig Yash Chopra---a frequent Kashmir visitor who died days after shooting his last film in the Valley, in 2012. Chopra’s YRF had shot some of Bollywood's top box office hits on the picturesque Valley locales. 

Then 21, Peerzada made her debut as assistant director of the YRF magnum opus 'Ek Tha Tiger', directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Chopra’s son Aditya Chopra and Sohail Sen.

This Indian action spy film had Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif in stellar roles, besides Roshan Seth, Ranvir Shorey and Girish Karnad who played the RAW chief.

In 2013, she was signed up for YRF’s Shuddh Desi Romance as a costume assistant director. But since the director Maneesh Sharma liked to take up newcomers for his movies, he asked her to do a screen test. “When I faced the camera, I suddenly felt exposed, emotionally and physically, even though I was wearing a salwar kameez. I felt vulnerable and uncomfortable. I just got up, and said, ‘I don’t want to do this", she told The Indian Express in an interview in August 2014. 

Peerzada revealed that Yash Chopra’s death, coupled with Maneesh Sharma’s screen test, transformed her persona. Recluse at her home, she stumbled upon the transcript of one of Zakir Naik's speeches. It changed her life completely. She abandoned her Westernised, flamboyant lifestyle. From a “crazy shopaholic” who would lap up the “most expensive dresses and jeans”, she wore an all-black burqa. 

bought a lot of burqas; earlier, I’d shop for Western clothes.”

While pursuing a Masters in Islamic Studies with an online university in Qatar, she picked up a thick collection of Hijabs in Dubai and joined Dr Naik's wife Farha as a female Islamic preacher and activist. In the next few months, she began organising female gatherings in Srinagar and preached Naik's puritanical ideology of Islam that runs contrary to the Sufi tradition popular in Kashmir since 14th century A.D.

In 2014, Peerzada organised an Ijtima in Srinagar, close to the venue of a musical concert. Next day she posted on Instagram: "Yesterday there was a musical concert in Kashmir15 minutes away from our conference which was attended by Bollywood actors Sohail Khan and Suniel Shetty. For Kashmir, that’s something rare. We were asked to move our conference so that we may be able to pull a crowd. But look at Allah’s greatness, we gathered a crowd of 4,000 people and the concert a crowd of 200.” 

Nouman Ali Khan and Yasmin Mogahed became her role models.

Her tweets are usually re-tweets of Islamic scholars, and most are spiritual, asking people to turn to Allah to solve problems in their lives. “I don’t believe in teaching extremism. I have a very liberal approach towards religion. Angry speeches are not going to eventually appeal to the young, only love and wisdom can. Islam is a religion in controversy, and it needs youngsters like us to reach out to young Muslims in a humourous, light manner. American preacher Nouman Ali Khan cracks jokes in between his talks. That’s how it should be,” she said in an interview. She had a huge following on Instagram.

“They (the media) reduce women to objects that satisfy men and cause only a negative impact in people’s life including social networking sites. All the girls should learn to value themselves and their bodies. Cover up for the sake of Allah! Your body and also your character… My friends aren’t the girls who display themselves to the world, my friends are the girls who say they believe in Allah and prove it everyday. They’re the kinds that will Insha Allah reunite with me in jannah. Their goal isn’t ‘boys, parties and fashion’. Their goal is jannah", she once posted.

Peerzada now suggests her "positivity and creativity" is in conflict with Dr Naik's teachings but in her cautiously drafted email she steers clear of being critical to the cleric whose radical preaching provides an inspiration to a huge chunk of the Muslim population in India including Jammu and Kashmir.

END

[ Published in today's STATE TIMES ] 

Youth killed in forces' firing on mob after 2 militants' died in Pulwama encounter

Police Rakhshak torched, 17 cops injured in clashes; Geelani calls for shutdown

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz 

------------------

JAMMU, Jan 20: Current year's first civilian casualty in the Police and security forces' firing in Kashmir occurred in Naina Batpora village of Pulwama district in South Kashmir on Wednesday as the residents engaged the armed forces in violent clashes after a gunbattle in which two militants of Hizbul Mujahideen are believed dead.

Defence sources claimed that two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in the joint operation by Pulwama Police, Rashtriya Rifles and Central Reserve Police Force at Naina Batpora where a cordon-and-search operation had been launched on a specific information about the presence of two to three militants on Tuesday evening. Jammu and Kashmir Police, however, maintained that only one militant's body was recovered from the site of the encounter.

Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman Saleem Hashmi confirmed in a statement emailed to Srinagar-based mediapersons that two of his organisation's cadres had got killed in the encounter. He identified them as Shakir Ahmad Bhat alias Abdul Aziz of Banduna and Lateef Ahmad alias Haroon of Begpora.

DIG South Kashmir Nitish Kumar told STATE TIMES that Police and security forces had an 18-hour-long gunfight with the holed up militants. When the firing subsided and a portion of the identified house was brought down with IEDs, Police and troops started a search operation and recovered a militant's body alongwith an AK-47 rifle. Police got him identified as Shariq Ahmad Bhat of Brah Banduna, Pulwama.

"As soon as we started a search for the militants killed and their arms and ammunition, hundreds of residents gathered and attacked the Police and security gorces from all directions. Consequently we couldn't complete the search operation. We have taken the Hizbul Mujahideen statement seriously and we will be sifting through the debris in a couple of days. As of now, we can confirm only one militant's death but we can not rule out death of two militants", DIG said.

According to the DIG, a thick mob of the residents not only torched a Rakhshak vehicle of Police Station Kakpora but also caused injuries and fractures to 17 Police and paramilitary personnel. Those injured in the ding-dong clashes include two Deputy SPs----Nazir Ahmad Ganai of IRP 18th battalion and Iftikhar Choudhary of DAR Pulwama. He said that three civilians sustained firearm injuries in the clashes. Later one of the injured breathed his last at a hospital in Awantipora. He was identified as Pervez Ahmad Guroo of Naina Batpora.

Guroo, reports said, was a 23-year-old labourer who earned his livelihood out of sand extraction in river Jhelum. Residents maintained that Guroo was not part of the demonstration and he was shot dead by Police without a specific provocation. On the other hand, senior officials including DIG South Kashmir Nitish Kumar and SSP Pulwama Tejinder Singh, alleged that Police and security forces opened fire in self defence after a mob attacked and left injured over a dozen Police and paramilitary personnel including two officers. They claimed that there was no armed retaliation till the mob set a Rakhshak on fire and intensified its offensive.

Police Station Pulwama registered two FIRs---one on the encounter and another on the clashes, attacks, firing and the death of a youth.

With the death of the two militants in the encounter and a youth's killing in the firing by Police and security forces, Pulwama-Bijbehara-Awanipora belt of South Kashmir turned tense. Authorities did not confirm but sources revealed that curfew-like restrictions would be enforced in Naina Batpora area on the next three days. Train services in the Valley were closed down for Thursday late on Wednesday night.

Chairman of the radical faction of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani condemned Guroo's death in the Police fiing and called for shutdown in South Kashmir on Thursday. 

END

2 Hizb militants trapped in Pulwama encounter

Police deserter Shakoor's associat Gazi surrenders

AhmedAli Fayyaz 

JAMMU, Jan 19: Two of Hizbul Mujahideen’s local militants are believed to be trapped after Police and security forces swooped down on Nayina Batpora village in Pulwama-Bijbehara belt of South Kashmir on Tuesday evening.

Residents said that Police and Army launched a crackdown in the evening when the people were busy with the prayers at the village mosque. They said that after being holed up for about two hours, all the civilians were rescued. They said that gunshots were heard intermittently till around midnight.

Official sources told STATE TIMES that SOG Pulwama alongwith troops from RR 55 Bn and CRPF swooped down on a militant hideout after receiving reliable information about the presence of the top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani. However, by the time troops reached there, Burhan seemed to have left the village. Still two of his close associates got holed up. One of them, according to the officials busy with the operation, is Lateef of Dogripora.

DIG South Kashmir Nitish Kumar said that Police and forces managed to rescue all the family members of the civilian whose house was occupied by the two armed militants. He said that Police also succeeded in rescuing all the 40 civilians who had got trapped in the mosque. "On two occasions, militants opened fire which delayed our rescue operation for some time. However, by 11.30 pm we rescued all of them. Nobody is injured", DIG told STATE TIMES.

DIG said that there was little chance of the holed up militants' escape. He said that initially some residents tried to disrupt the operation with slogans and stones but they withdrew when Police used mild baton charge. SSP Pulwama Tejinder Singh and senior officers of Army’s Victor Force were supervising the operation at midnight.

Meanwhile STATE TIMES learned from highly placed official sources that one Gazi of Kundalan Shopian surrendered with one AK 47 rifle before SSP Shopian late in the evening on Tuesday. PSO of Dy SP Operations Bijbehara Irshad Ahmad Bhat, Constable Shakoor of Kundalan, had escaped with four AK 47 rifles three days back and given the guns to three residents of his village including Gazi.

Gazi revealed to Police that Shakoor and he approached both LET and Hizbul Mujahideen but neither of them trusted them. Finally he decided to surrender. He has given some leads about Shakoor's whereabouts to Police who have launched manhunt in search of the deserter. Dy SP Irshad Bhat had been attacked by militants at Bijbehara and left criticality injured on December 24. He is now recovering.

End

PDP kept 18 MLAs, 4 MLCs out from crucial meeting on alliance with BJP

'Only Cabinet Ministers, family members, advisors, select MLCs and select office-bearers were invited'

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

--------------

JAMMU, Jan 18: Voices of dissent rallying around the ebullient Member of Parliament and senior PDP leader Tariq Hameed Karra are emerging as a potential threat to PDP's renewal of alliance with BJP as 22 legislators ---18 MLAs and 4 MLCs----had not been invited to Sunday's crucial meeting that set the tone for formation of the new government with BJP.

With his phone continuously switched off, Karra remained inaccessible after the conclusion of the PDP meeting at the Muftis' Fairview residence. However, a local news agency quoted him as saying that his silence in the meeting was not essentially his endorsement of the proposed government formation with BJP. He is reported to have said that he would soon have a one-on-one meeting with the party President Mehbooba Mufti and register his opposition to the suggestion of continuing the coalition with BJP.

Significantly, on January 12th Karra had categorically rejected the idea of PDP-BJP government while urging Mehbooba, in a statement through KNS, to terminate her party's alliance with BJP and approach Congress for forging a "secular government". 

Karra had said: "PDP has lost its support by tying up with a communal party. I have been saying from the last nine months that RSS-BJP is not acceptable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Because it has a history that since 1952, RSS and BJP have a hidden agenda in Kashmir. What RSS could not achieve in the last six decades, they have achieved that in the last six months. And not only has it damaged Kashmir, but also Peoples Democratic Party in Kashmir.”

Previously too, Karra, alongwith Muzaffar Hussain Baig, had boycotted PDP-BJP Coordination Committee meeting on August 19, PDP's meeting ahead of Prime Minister’s November 7th rally presided over by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on October 21 and finally PDP's marathon performance review meeting chaired by Mufti at Banquet Hall in Srinagar on December 19th.

Insiders said that Karra remained tightlipped all through the five-hour-long meeting in which none other than Ms Mufti herself set the tone in favour of forming the government with BJP even as some of the participants expressed disappointment over the fact that BJP had not fulfilled "even a single" of the promises and commitments held out to PDP in the common minimum programme called the 'Agenda of Alliance'. However, all 10 of late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Cabinet Ministers----9 MLAs and one MLC--- besides Ms Mufti’s relatives and her father's and her own advisors emphasised that taking a different course would tantamount to proving the party patriarch as wrong.

Four of the party’s legislators, who spoke to STATE TIMES on condition of anonymity, said invariably that around two dozen MLAs and MLCs were "terribly upset" over not being invited to the meeting. "Out of 27 MLAs only 9 (all of them Sayeed's Cabinet Ministers) were invited. Out of 9 MLCs, only five were hand-picked for the meeting", said a legislator and senior PDP leader. "We were more surprised to see that Mufti Sahab’s aides, advisors and relatives, some of them not even basic members of the party, had been invited to the meeting", he added and asked how even the salaried people like Peer Mohammad Hussain (head of Wakf board) and Nayeema Mehjoor (Chairman State Women’s Commission) attended the crucial meeting. "They are neither legislators, nor ex-Ministers, nor even members of PAC or any other party panel. How can they decide about the party’s coalition with any other party? How can the very senior leaders and sitting legislators be left out of this crucial deliberation?", asked he.

When it was pointed out to the sulking PDP legislators that it was a "Core Group Meeting" which was not supposed to be attended by all the leadrs and legislators, one of them asserted: "There's no Core Group (Political Affairs Committee) or Executive Committee after dissolution of all the bodies last year. Only the President, some General Secretaries, District Presidents, District Coordinators and Zonal Presidens have been elected/appointed. President is yet to constitute Political Affairs Committee, Executive Council and General Council. Even if we assume the previous PAC as existing, how many of these invitees and participants were members of that panel which happens to be the highest decision making body?"

Another legislator pointed out that the sitting MLAs and MLCs had been dropped by a number of former ministers and defeated MLAs invited. "If Peer Hussain, Gaffar Sofi and Qazi Afzal attended as former ministers/ defeated candidates, why not former Forest Minister Mohiuddin Sofi?", he asked.

PDP's chief spokesperson Dr Mehboob Beg refused to accept that the invitees had been selected on pick-and-choose basis. "Nobody was handpicked. I myself checked with President. She made it clear to me that it is just an extended meeting of the Core Group (PAC). Nobody was invited as a legislator. Only the Cabinet Ministers, senior office bearers like the four General Secretaries and Coordinators and members of Core Group were invited. Besides, there were a few special invitees like me", Dr Beg asserted. He claimed that the former Core Group (PAC) was still in life.

Dr Beg said that the party leadership would hold separate meeting "in due course of time" and all of them would be taken on board before the government formation. 

Among the 9 MLCs, only Nayeem Akhtar (ex-Minister), Asgar Ali, Yashpal Sharma, Vikramadatiya Singh and Anayat Ali attended the meeting. Saifuddin Bhat, Khursheed Alam, Zaffar Iqbal Manhas and Firdaus Tak were not invited.

END

PDP LEGISLATORS NOT INVITED TO THE MEETING

1. Mohammad Ashraf Mir MLA Sonwar/ Ex-MoS

2. Abdul Majid Paddar MLA Noorabad/ Ex-MoS

3. Asiea Naqash MLA Hazratbal /Ex-MoS

4. Abid Hussain Ansari MLA Zadibal

5. Javed Hassan Baig MLA Baramulla 

6. Yawar Ahmad Mir MLA Rafiabad 

7. Mohd Abbas Wani MLA Gulmarg 

8. Raja Manzoor Ahmad MLA Karnah

9. Nazir Ahmad MLA Batmaloo 

10. Mushtaq Ahmad Shah MLA Tral 

11. Zahoor Ahmad Mir MLA Pampore

12. Mohd Khalil Bandh MLA Pulwama 

13. Aijaz Ahmad Mir MLA Wachi

14. Mohd Yousuf Bhat MLA Shopian

15. Abdul Rahim Rather MLA Kokernag 

16. Syed Farooq Andrabi MLA Dooru

17. Shah Mohd Tantray MLA Poonch

18. Qamar Hussain Ch. MLA Rajouri

19. Saifuddin Bhat MLC

20. Zaffar Iqbal Manhas MLC

21. Khursheed Alam MLC

22. Firdaus Ahmad Tak MLC

END