Militants mulling ban on recruitment of SCs in Valley

Omar calls separatists ‘merchants of death’, Geelani hits back on Sheikh dynasty

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, May 13: With the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the secessionist Hurriyat Conference yet again creating the atmosphere of regional and communal polarization over reservation of 8 percent vacancies for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), militants are considering ‘blanket ban’ on recruitment of all non-Kashmiris in government service in Kashmir valley.

Authoritative sources disclosed to Early Times that a Pakistan-based militant alliance was seriously considering to impose ‘blanket ban’ on recruitment of the SC candidates in all state government services in Kashmir valley. This, according to sources, was likely to be proclaimed with the argument that reservation of 8 percent vacancies in all ten districts of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir province could bring about a demographic change in the Valley. As and when announced, this diktat would mean ‘ban’ on recruitment of SC candidates at both, district as well as divisional level, as none of them would ordinarily muster courage to seek a government job against the quota of 8 percent reserved for them in a lately enacted legislation in the Assembly.

The militant alliance, according to sources, was planning a riding on a public sentiment that was currently being made wider and popular by almost all the separatist as well as mainstream political parties---excluding the ruling coalition partners of NC and Congress---in Kashmir valley. A number of PDP and Hurriyat leaders, besides High Court Bar Association, have been mobilizing cadres to corner the ruling coalition over reservation of 8 percent of the government jobs in the Muslim-dominated valley for the SC candidates who were nearly all Hindus and belonging to Jammu province. Sources said that some government agencies had intercepted “dangerous communication” between Muzaffarabad-based guerrillas and Srinagar-based separatist leaders.

From PDP stalwart Muzaffar Hussain Baig to the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a large number of Kashmiri politicians have been critical of the reservation and alleged that it had been made in the wake of NC’s “surrender” before some Hindu extremist forces. At a news conference, Geelani today described NC, Congress and RSS as “friendlies”. He alleged that both reservation for SCs in Kashmir, as well as the current census operation being conducted by the Union Home Ministry, were aimed at changing the Valley’s demography in favour of the minority community.

Geelani read out statistics to establish that percentage of Muslims in Jammu division had drastically reduced in the last 60 years with regard to total population of the province. According to him, percentage of non-Muslims had been shown to have remarkably increased as compared to Muslims in Kashmir valley inspite of mass migration of Kashmiri Pants in 1989-90. He asserted that non-Kashmiris and non-Muslim labours, particularly from Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, were being pushed into the Valley, “under a conspiracy” by the Government of India with the support of the state rulers. According to him, it was all “part of a conspiracy to change the state’s--- particularly the Valley’s--- demographic character.

Even as National Conference President and Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, today reiterated at a rally of the employees of Rural Development Department that the separatist leaders, according to him, promoting stone pelting and disruption of tourism and education, were “merchants of death”, Geelani hit back on the Sheikh dynasty at his news conference. He ridiculed that a family of the Valley’s secular rulers had become a zoo of the members of Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. “They want to uproot our religious basis and turn entire Kashmir into a similar mosaic”, Geelani said.

In contrast to a statement from Hurriyat (Mirwaiz), in which an advocate had asked the Kashmiri Muslim government employees to themselves handle the entire census operation, Geelani asked the government employees to stay away from it.

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