New Delhi strengthened militants to eliminate NC: Dr Kamaal

‘British Saamraaj went back but Brahman Saamraaj took over in India in 1947’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 13: Senior leader of the ruling National Conference (NC) and scion of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s dynasty, Dr Mustafa Kamaal, today described India and Pakistan as equal enemies of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Leveling an extremely serious allegation on the Centre, Dr Kamaal complained that successive governments in New Delhi had chronically perceived NC as a threat to nationalism and, therefore, strengthened militants and Kashmiri separatists only to uproot this party of sub-national aspiration. He suggested that Punjabi Muslims and Hindu Dogras have been taking revenge of Sheikh Abdullah’s struggle from the Kashmiris through Islamabad and New Delhi respectively since 1947 as the charismatic NC founder had permanently shut the shop of their 100-year-long monopoly and empowered the Kashmiris.

In Take One Television’s current affairs programme “Face to Face with Ahmed Ali Fayyaz”, Dr Mustafa Kamaal tonight held both, New Delhi and Pakistan equally responsible for decades of political uncertainty and turmoil in Jammu & Kashmir. He said that Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had ended 100-year-long monopoly of the Punjabi Muslims and the minority community (Dogras of Jammu) in 1947. “But one side went to Pakistan and another sided with Delhi and both began taking revenge of Sheikh Sahab’s struggle from the Kashmiris. Both have consensus on one thing: Let the Kashmiris not die of hunger but let them never have peace”, Dr Kamaal claimed. “British Saamraaj went back but things were taken over by Brahman Saamraaj in 1947 in the name of democracy”, he added.

“National Conference categorically rejected Jinah’s 2-nation theory and did never believe in Azadi or accession to Pakistan. Ironically, hands of all of NC’s enemies joined from New Delhi to Srinagar and they left no stone unturned in eliminating this party which believed in accession to India. With Delhi’s blessings, they were all, from Mirwaiz Farooq to Abdul Gani Lone, on one platform in 1977. All of them again joined hands in 1990 and began uprooting the NC. Militancy was created and the gun introduced only to liquidate the NC. Twenty thousand of the NC workers were killed in 20 years but the NC is as strong as it was in 1947”, Dr Kamaal asserted.

While India allowed militancy to gain ground, Pakistan, according to the NC leader, was no less cruel as it got a large number of NC’s leaders and activists, including three Ministers and many legislators, eliminated by militants.

Dr Kamaal alleged that Government of India patronized, protected, glamorized and funded the Valley’s militants and separatist leaders, accorded to them warm receptions and also organized their foreign tours with state facilitation under a sinister plan. According to him, New Delhi’s game-plan in this entire process was to uproot Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s political party which, he claimed, had struggled for dignity of the Kashmiris. He said that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his PDP were introduced in 1999 under the same sinister plan. “New Delhi assigned them the job of projecting Sheikh Abdullah and his party as the root cause of all evil in Jammu & Kashmir”, he said.

Dr Kamaal said that Sheikh Abdullah’s party, currently headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah, had survived the worst of the times and always staged a comeback. He said that NC had no hesitation in saying that it was “dead against terror and violence” and asserted that without yielding to the separatist and pseudo-separatist mayhem, NC would yet again come out of current agitational anarchy. “We are neither going to quit nor comprise. Over 20,000 of our leaders and activists have been killed in last 20 years. We have lived here and we will continue to live and lead the people here”, Dr Kamaal asserted.

According to him, it was only in the interest of peace that NC’s cadres had avoided visiting Mazaar-e-Shuhada (martyrs’ graveyard) at Naqashbad Sahab in large numbers to pay tributes to the martyrs of 1931 today. He said that NC’s political rivals, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, had created “a parallel martyrs’ graveyard” at Iddgah but that would never divide sanctity of the “real martyrs graveyard” at Naqashband Sahab. While as 23 Kashmiris gunned down by Dogra soldiers outside Srinagar Central Jail on July 13, 1931, stand buried at Naqashbad Sahab, hundreds of separatist militants and non-combatant Kashmiris, killed or perceived to have been killed by security forces and Police since January 1990, have their tombs at the new Mazaar-e-Shuhada at Iddgah in Srinagar outskirts.

Asked why NC-led coalition government did not allow Mirwaiz Umar’s and Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s followers to assemble at Naqashband Sahab for paying floral tributes to the 23 martyrs, Dr Kamaal said that their programme was clearly to create mayhem with stone pelting and slogans. “Government’s first and the foremost priority was to secure the life of innocent people”, he said. He revealed that in a high level meeting the other day, NC had taken strong exception to New Delhi’s “unwarranted interference” in the state’s matters and resolved to see that there was no further political statement from the Army chief or things like announcement of the curfew imposition by the union Home Secretary.

Dr Kamaal is currently NC’s MLA from Hazratbal segment in the capital city. He has earlier served two terms as a Minister in Dr Farooq Abdullah’s Cabinet---first from 1987 to 1990 and later from 1996 to 2002. He happens to be the former Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah’s younger brother and an uncle to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

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