CM’s hometown becomes Pakistan at militants’ funeral

Mufti’s house in Bijbehara attacked by demonstrators; Pak flag hoisted

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

SRINAGAR, Nov 24: Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s call for shutdown evoked a lukewarm response in Kashmir Valley on Tuesday even as his followers held a big pro-Pakistan show in Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s hometown of Bijbehara, in Anantnag district of South Kashmir, at the funeral of the three Hizbul Mujahideen militants.

Members of a guerrilla group constituted in the current year in Bijbehara, the three young militants---Aadil Ahmad Sheikh, Tanveer Ahmad Bhat and Sartaj Ahmad Lone----had been killed by Police and Army in a gunbattle in Tantraypora (Siligam), in Aeshmuqam area of Anantnag-Pahalgam belt, on Monday.

Business establishments, shops and passenger transport remained closed in some areas but many markets in Srinagar and other major towns in the Valley functioned as usual. With a partial shutdown, even the passenger transport operated in many areas, excluding in Anantnag, Kulgam, Bijbehara and Mattan where almost all the shops were shut and transport was off the road.

Independent sources, as also officials who insisted to go anonymous, told STATE TIMES that over 5,000 people attended Sartaj Lone’s funeral procession at Wopzan, on the outskirts of Bijbehara. The only brother of three sisters, Lone is said to have joined militancy just 10 days ago. The gathering shouted anti-India, pro-Azadi and pro-Pakistan slogans at the slain militant’s funeral.

Sources said that a bigger pro-militant, pro-Azadi, pro-Pakistan and anti-India show was held at Bijbehara. Tanveer Ahmad Bhat, who had joined militancy, allegedly with the killing of a civilian Javed Ahmad Sofi on March 22, 2015, was a resident of Baba Mohalla, where Chief Minister Mufti has his ancestral house. Mufti’s brother and other relatives continue to live in the same neighbourhood known for the revered shrine of Sheikhul Aalm Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani’s disciple Baba Naseebuddin.

Civil administration and Police had tried to manage all the three militants’ funeral late last night. Even the two Bijbehara militants’ bodies were carried for burial. However, sources revealed, some of the separatist leaders asked the families by telephone to conduct the funeral at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday. Government’s political leadership asked the Police to allow the funeral with any peaceful demonstration and desired that no restrictions be enforced to prevent the peoples’ participation.

However, limited restrictions were put in place in some towns and villages in the adjoining Kulgam and Pulwama district to ensure that the separatists did not carry a big rally to Bijbehara.

Notwithstanding the tactical restrictions, sources said, around 10,000 people participated in the joint funeral of the two Bijbehara militants who were buried in a local ‘martyrs graveyard’. SSP Ananatng Abdul Jabbar said that around 7,000 people attended the funeral and about 10% of them as usual indulged in stone pelting. He claimed that nobody was injured in the clashes.

After the funeral concluded, demonstrators resorted to intense stone pelting on Police and paramilitary deployment. Some of them hoisted a Pakistani national flag on Mufti’s house followed by stone pelting on the premises. Even in the funeral procession earlier, participants carried pro-Pakistan flags and shouted pro-Pakistan, pro-Azadi, pro-militant and anti-India slogans.

Residents said that the Police guards fired some shots in the air and a reinforcement forced the demonstrators disperse. However, SSP Anantnag insisted that only a couple of the ‘stunt grenades’ were used and the guards did not fire a single gunshot. He said that the house on which some people installed a Pakistani flag was situated in the rear side of Mufti's house. Police brought it down and the crowd dispersed.

Traffic on Srinagar-Jammu highway remained disrupted and suspended for about three hours but restored in the afternoon.

A three-member delegation from Hurriyat (G), comprising Ghulam Nabi Sumji, Mir Hafizullah and Bashir Ahmad Qureishi, attended the funeral and addressed the gathering. Militant-turned-politician Zaffar Akbar Bhat too delivered a fiery speech, making frontal attacks on Chief Minister. “This is not the Mufti who has acquired a degree in Islamic jurisprudence from a Daar-ul-Uloom. He has a degree only from the RSS headquarters of Nagpur”, the Police-protected separatist Zaffar Bhat said.

The key address to the gathering was delivered by Geelani on telephone from his Hyderpora residence in Srinagar. “Our youth are sacrificing for a great cause so we need to protect their sacrifices. The pro-India politicians are only prolonging our way to freedom. The three martyred youth have sacrificed their lives for Islam and freedom from India. We must honour their sacrifices,” he said. “Rigid and stubborn policies of Indian rulers are forcing our beloved youths to abandon their colleges and universities and they are taking the path of armed struggle”, Geelani said.

END

Hizb group of Chief Minister’s hometown wiped out

3 militants killed in Anantnag, one more in Kupwara encounter 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
________ 

SRINAGAR, Nov 23: Set up in Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s hometown of Bijbehara, a fresh group of three Hizbul Mujahideen militants was wiped out by Jammu and Kashmir Police and Army in a gunbattle on Monday in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

Inspector General of Police Kashmir, Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gilani, told STATE TIMES that the operation was launched by Police and security forces on specific information about the presence of three militants received by Police from its sources in the afternoon. Anantnag District Police and troops of a unit of Rashtriya Rifles 3^rd battalion participated in the operation. According to the tip off, three militants were hiding at Tantraypora hamlet of Siligam in Mattan area of Anantnag district.

IGP said that all three militants got killed in the encounter that started after they opened fire and refused to respond to offers of surrender. They were later identified as Tanvir Ahmad Bhat s/o Mubarak Ahmad Bhat of Baba Mohalla Bijbehara, Adil Ahmad Sheikh s/o Fayaz Ahmad Sheikh of Sheikh Mohalla Bijbehara and Sartaj Ahmad Lone s/o Ghulam Mohammad Lone of Wopzan Bijbehara.

Three AK-47 riffles, one pistol and one UBGL were recovered from the site of the encounter.

IGP said that the three slain militants were part of a six-member group of Hizbul Mujahideen set up in Bijbehara area in the current year. “We have eliminated three of them and search is underway for remaining three of them”, IGP said.

According to Police records, Aadil Sheikh was involved in the killing of Constable Arif Nazir Khan of Police Station Bijbehara on 16th June this year. With that action, he had joined Hizbul Mujahideen. Tanveer Ahamd Bhat, who lived in Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s neighbourhood of Baba Mohalla and belonged to a business family, was involved in the killing of a civilian Javed Ahamd Sofi alias Waza son of Mohammad Ismail resident of Bijbehara on March 22, 2015. He too had joined militancy with that very strike. Sartaj Ahmad Lone had joined militant ranks just 10 days ago.

Even as a number of militancy related incidents and encounters have occurred in South Kashmir on right side of Srinagar-Jammu highway in the last three years, it was after several years that a gunbattle took place and three militants died in the encounter on the left side of the highway, on Khannabal-Pahalgam Road, perceived to be free of militancy.

Clashes in Anantnag

Bodies were handed over to the families in the evening amid spontaneous shutdown in Khannabal-Mattan-Bijbehara belt.

Reports from Anantnag said that hundreds of people came out of different villages. They boarded vehicles and while shouting pro-Azadi slogans attempted to march to Siligam. However, Police swung into action and foiled their attempted to gather in Bijbehara and Mattan areas. Thereafter, several groups of the demonstrators resorted to intense stone pelting and traffic came to a halt on the highway.

Traffic was reportedly diverted and restored after clashes for about two hours. Sources said that funeral prayers of the three militants would be held at Bijbehara at around 10.00 a.m on Tuesday. 

Geelani calls shutdown

Chairman of Hurriyat Conference’s radical group Syed Ali Shah Geelani paid tributes to the slain militants in a statement and called for shutdown in Kashmir valley for Tuesday. Chairman of Hurriyat’s moderate faction Mirwaiz Umar Farooq too paid tributes to the three militants in a separately issued statement.
 
Meanwhile, Defence spokesman said that in the Army’s 10-day-long operation in Manigah forest area of Kupwara, one militant died today in an encounter. He said that the operation would continue until remaining two to three militants of the group would be neutralised. One unidentified militant’s body with an AK rifle was spotted and recovered on November 10 in the same area. He was believed to have died of severe cold. Later a Commanding Officer of a battalion also died and a soldier sustained injuries in another encounter in Manigah.

The spokesman said that a Lieutenant Colonel and a soldier, who got injured in an encounter in the same area on Sunday, were stable at Army’s Base Hospital in Srinagar. Lt Colonel has been hit in his jaw.

Militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba had last evening claimed that Lt Colonel had been killed in the encounter. However, spokesman of the outfit today withdrew the claim and said that the officer was injured and alive. 

“All the militants who were involved in the encounter with Indian army will be awarded Rs 25 lakh each. The army Lieutenant colonel has been injured, not killed,” LeT spokesman Dr Abdullah Ghaznavi said in a statement e-mailed to STATE TIMES. He said that the outfit’s leadership had appreciated the guerrilla warfare strategies of the new LeT commander Abu Musa in Kashmir.

END

From Legislature to High Court, officials dole out lies on Dal conservation

Not a penny released to LAWDA till Nov 18 when Rs 15 cr was authorised under pressure of High Court

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz & Samaan Lateef

____________________________

SRINAGAR, Nov 21: Contrary to the claims made by bureaucrats and officers of the State Finance Department (FD) and Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD) before Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council (LC) and Jammu and Kashmir High Court (HC), Government has not released even a penny either for conservation of the world-famous Dal Lake or for operation and maintenance of the Sewage Treatment Plants in the current financial year till November 18 when authorisation of a Rs 15 crore central fund was issued under pressure of the High Court.

Pulling up the officials on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, a Division Bench of HC, comprising Mr Justice Hasnain Massodi and Mr Justice Ali Mohammad Mir, has directed Commissioner-Secretary HUDD Bipul Pathak and Commissioner-Secretary FD Naveen Choudhary to cause their personal appearance on next Thursday and explain why the Government had failed to provide necessary funds to LAWDA for the lake’s conservation and maintenance and operation of STPs.

The DB’s order came in the wake of the conflicting claims of different Government functionaries---some claiming that the money had been provided on time as usual and others insisting that nothing had reached the LAWDA.

In a significant development, STATE TIMES learned from well-placed sources that even on October 21, 2015, Secretary HUDD Bipul Pathak claimed in a meeting of the LC’s Public Assurances Committee, headed by Chairperson Dr Shehnaz Ganai, that he had released an amount of Rs 16 crore to LAWDA “only yesterday”. All the senior officials and bureaucrats of HUD attended the meeting in which Vice Chairman LAWDA Sarmad Hafeez, then on election duty in Bihar, was represented by incharge VC and Commissioner of Srinagar Municipal Corporation Showkat Ahmad Zargar.

The Committee was deliberating on Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of HUDD Dr Nirmal Singh’s assurance regarding Dal conservation to the Congress MLC Ghulam Nabi Monga.

“Fact of the matter is that the senior officials are doling out lies. We have not received even a penny till November 18 when Joint Director (Resources) in FD issued sanction to advance drawal of Rs 15 crore that had been released by Ministry of Environment and Forest of Government of India in July”, an official source revealed. On November 18^th, Mr Pathak has forwarded the communication under No: FD/Res/CSS/NLCP/33/2015-16/513 to Director General Accounts & treasuries.

However, sources made it clear, this particular amount could in no way be utilised for maintenance and operation of STPs which have been shut down as LAWDA has failed to clear liabilities on account of fuel since April this year. “After a great difficulty, some LAWDA officials have motivated a petrol pump owner to continue fuel supplies for some days”.

VC LAWDA Sarmad Hafeez refused to comment or share any information. However, sources in HUDD said that all the Government departments had been authorised to spend 75% of the last financial year’s plan outlay in absence of the release of plan funds. “We fail to understand why HUDD has not received such authorisation and why no funds have been spent out of the annual State Plan in the last 8 months of the current financial year”, said an officer.

Now that High Court has pulled up the officials, it has become clear that the State Plan authorisation has been pending wither with Secretaries or Ministers of Finance or HUDD. It has also become clear that even the National Lake Conservation Plan (NLCP) kitty of Rs 15 crore has remained wrapped either in FD or in HUDD since July this year”, another well-placed officer said.

Union Ministry of Environment had not released any funds out of NLCP in the last two years. An amount of Rs 298.75 crore had been sanctioned for conservation of Dal Lake in 2005. Earlier this year, LAWDA officials pointed out that an amount of Rs 40 crore had been withheld by the Centre though all utilisation certificates had been furnished. They pleaded that the Dal Lake conservation should not be held hostage to non-availability of the UCs of ERA or other wings of HUDD. Thereafter, Union Ministry of Environment released Rs 15 crore and assured that the final instalment of Rs 40 crore would land upon receiving UC of the Rs 15 crore. However, nothing of it reached LAWDA.

Pathak and Choudhary besides Director Planning S.S. Jamwal will explain their respective positives before DB on Thursday. On last Thursday and today, DB did not entertain Additional Advocate General’s claim that funds had been provided to LAWDA. The LAWDA officials contested AAG’s claim, claiming that the funds he was referring to had been released on March 31, 2015, to meet the liabilities of the last financial year.

“It is necessary to direct presence of Commissioner Secretaries of Finance Department and HUDD, as information regarding sanction or flow of funds to LAWDA and inputs on other aspects of the matter are necessary for passing appropriate directions in the matter. We direct their personal appearance on November 26, at 2:00 pm,” court said.

The centre government through its Assistant Solicitor General Showkat Ahmad Makroo said Rs 15 crore out of Rs 40 crore were provided to State government in July 2015 as part of Rs 298.75 NLCP for conservation of the Dal Lake.

Court also directed the State government officials to explain the reasons for delay in release of Rs 15 crore. Besides, they have been asked to explain ways and means to accelerate flow of funds to complete projects likes Rakh-e-Arth housing colony for Dal dwellers, within reasonable time as suspension of the rehabilitation with no plausible reason had severely affected the conservation plan of Dal Lake.

Court also desired Director General of Police take a decision before Nov 26 on installation of CCTVs to monitor the construction works and transportation of building material within and around Dal Lake. It also directed the Inspector General of Police Kashmir to make nakas functional to monitor the transportation of building material for Dal Lake.

On attachment of six lower rung officials for allowing the illegal constructions within prohibited area of Dal Lake earlier this week, the Court rapped the Vigilance Organization Kashmir for “mixing up” the allegations on officers facilitating illegal construction with allegations of accumulation of disproportionate assets by officers. High Court directed the VOK to constitute a separate team of officers to look into the allegations of disproportionate assets and file the compliance report.

END

Budgam ADC sleeps over State Times RTI but Div Com asks DC to retrieve Humhama land

 

Friends Enclave residents complain nexus between land grabbers and Revenue officials

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
_______

SRINAGAR, Nov 20: Even as the Revenue authorities in Budgam district are continuously sleeping over an application seeking information about the community and the State land grabbed by a large number of influential people in the posh Friends Enclave, Humhama Estate and Gogoland, close to Srinagar Airport, Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon on Friday took cognizance of the complaints from the residents and directed Deputy Commissioner of Budgam Altaf Mir to immediately remove all the encroachments in accordance to law.

“Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon today asked Deputy Commissioner Budgam to remove all the encroachments in Humhama area. The Commissioner issued the instructions after the residents from Friends Enclave Humhama apprised him with their issues during a meeting. Dr Samoon asked Deputy Commissioner Budgam to clear all kinds of encroachments including those on Kahcharai land in the area”, an official e-mail issued to the media by Directorate of Information this evening said.

Attempts to contact Dr Samoon on telephone did not succeed but informed sources disclosed that a delegation of the residents of Friends Enclave complained to him that Revenue authorities in Budgam district were “hand-in-glove” with a well-connected land mafia and the legal action, initiated by Tehsildar and Naib Tehsildar of Budgam sometime back, had stalled under pressure from “powerful people”.

“Tehsildar and Naib Tehsildar have been threatened of dire consequences if they enforced the eviction notices delivered on the land grabbers a long time ago. They have been directed by senior officials not to share any information with media. It’s a tantamount to total breakdown of the rule of law”, residents, according to sources, complained to Divisional Commissioner who himself happens to be a resident of Friends Enclave.

As already reported by this newspaper, State and kahcharai land of 335 Kanals, valued at Rs 335 crore, has been found to have been encroached upon and grabbed by different powerful people. A survey conducted by a former Tehsildar and Naib Tehsildar led to issuance of notices to the identified land grabbers. However, no substantive action was initiated against them. Those identified as the land grabbers include a Cabinet Minister of Omar Abdullah’s NC-Congress coalition government, a former Chief Town Planner, around a dozen of senior and middle-rung KAS and IAS officers besides six senior Police officers including retired IGPs, DIGs and SSPs.

Kahcharai land grabbing assumed menacing proportions to the extent that on one occasion, a former Revenue Minister’s Police guards and a former Chief Secretary’s security staff took out guns against each other in an attempt to annexe 10 marlas of kahcharai land on behalf of their VIPs. It led to registration of FIRs and counter-FIRs at Humhama Police Division. Invariably the modus operandi has been allotment of a piece of land from J&K Housing Cooperative and subsequently annexing adjacent kahcharai strips.

“This is total dereliction of duty and the delinquent Revenue officials must be taken to task. We are going to approach J&K High Court and seeking action against both, the land grabbers as well as the delinquent Revenue officials by name in a PIL already filed in the court”, eminent lawyer and activist Sheikh Shakeel Ahmad said.

 

RTI application ignored

 

On July 7, 2015, STATE TIMES filed an application under RTI Act before Public Information Officer of Revenue Department in Budgam district (Additional Deputy Commissioner Mr Qadri), seeking details about the kahcharai and the State land grabbed in Friends Enclave, Humhama Estate and Gogoland besides particulars of the land grabbers, their official and public position and the notices served on them. It also sought reasons how the follow up action had got stalled without any plausible reason, and the particulars of the officers who acted as Deputy Commissioners, Tehsildars, Naib Tehsildars, Girdawars and Patwaris in the said area.

Even as the ADC was bound by law to provide details within a month, he did not respond either to the application or to the reminders. On September 7, 2015, STATE TIMES filed the First Appeal under RTI Act before the appellate authority (DC Budgam). He too chose to ignore the appeal for over two months forcing the applicant to file second appeal before State Information Commission.

END

Mufti tells media barons: “Indira-Abdullah Accord revived democratic process in J&K, dealt a blow to cynics”

‘Hate propagandists are a fringe minority, can’t derail agenda of peace and development’

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

______

SRINAGAR, Nov 20: In a significant contrast to his decades-long rhetoric of opposition to the National Conference founder late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his political ideology, Peoples Democratic Party supremo and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Friday hailed the 1975 Indira-Abdullah Accord and claimed that it had created space for politicians like him and neutralised Kashmir’s cynicism vis-à-vis accession to India.

In an exhaustive interaction with the Indian broadcast media magnates here, Mufti called the Indira-Abdullah Accord “an important event”. “It revived the democratic process in the state and created space for politicians of different shades, including me. It also dealt a blow to those who believed that J&K was remote-controlled by New Delhi”, Mufti asserted.

“I am thankful to former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for exploding the myth by ensuring free and fair elections in 2002 which strengthened the democratic institutions and allowed parties like PDP to emerge on the political canvas of the state”, Chief Minister told the delegation of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), a think-tank of news and entertainment media, which, for the first time, held a Board of Directors (BoD) in Srinagar.

President IBF and CEO of Star India, Uday Shankar, Vice President IBF, Puneet Goenka, Vice President IBF & Chairman India TV, Rajat Sharma, Vice President IBF and Director Bangla Entertainment Pvt Limited, N. P. Singh, Treasurer IBF and GM South Asia of Discovery Networks, Rahul Johri, Director Eenadu TV, I. Venkat, Group CEO of Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd, Sudhanshu Vats, MD (South Asia) Turner International, Siddharth Jain, Chairman of TV Today Group, Arun Purie, MD of UTV Entertainment, Siddharth  Roy Kapoor,  and Member Finance Doordarshan, Rajeev Singh, were among the participants who interacted with Mufti.

Chief Minister had a word of caution over the threat posed by “certain fringe groups” to the country’s rich diversity and multiculturalism. “The agenda of development cannot take a back seat to the politics of hate propagated by a fringe minority which relishes media attention. We need to shrink their space by simply ignoring them,” he asserted. He called Mohammad Akhlaq’s lynching to death in Dadri and Kashmiri trucker Zahid Rasool Bhat’s killing by a frenzied group in Udhampur “very unfortunate” but expressed his satisfaction over the way the people of both the communities “demonstrated great maturity and did not fall prey to the evil and nefarious designs of these enemies of the State who want to destroy the centuries-old harmony exhibited by the people”.

The peaceful conduct of Amarnath Yatra year after year, he said, was “an ample testimony to the secular credentials of the people of my state”. “I am happy that our Legislature set a great precedent by unanimously adopting a resolution in both the Houses, condemning violence in any form and sending out a clear message of peace and tolerance to the rest of the country”, Mufti said.

Pleading for restoration of New Delhi’s talks with Islamabad, Mufti said reiterated that relationship with Pakistan had a direct bearing on J&K. “Political uncertainty hampers state’s development. I strongly believe that all issues between India and Pakistan should be resolved amicably by engaging in a meaningful dialogue. I set the tone during my earlier tenure from 2002 to 2005 when we had a decade-long peace in the region”.

Mufti also advocated revival of dialogue with Hurriyat Conference and other Kashmiri separatists. “On internal front, we favour dialogue with all shades of opinion. Sajjad Gani Lone is one example. The government’s Agenda of the Alliance also favours dialogue with those who have ideological differences with us. We will continue to explore this option”, he said. He described the cross-LoC trade and travel as “the biggest confidence building measure between India and Pakistan”.

END

Shutdown series 2010

 

Shutdown or 'Hartal' has been the Kashmiris' staple form of demonstration---protest against the killing of civilians or militants, alleged custodial disappearance, alleged rape or molestation of women by security forces or Police---since the outbreak of armed insurgency in 1989. Also on Indian Independence Day (August 15), Indian Republic Day (January 26) and Indian Army's first arrival in Kashmir (October 27), there has been a call of shutdown every year in the last 26 years. Militants or separatist politicians have never tolerated criticism of Hartal, pleading that it was "the only available tool of protest and demonstration". Daily Al-Safa News editor Mohammad Shaban Vakil's assassination in 1991 in the midst of his series of critiques on Hartal. Five senior officers, including Naeem Akhtar (now PDP's MLC and Minister of Education in Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's PDP-BJP Government in J&K, sponsored a 72-day-long shutdown of government services leading to their dismissal which was, however, withdrawn and all the five officers were reinstated by Governor's administration. Now, for the first time, Chairman of Hurriyat Conference's 'moderate faction' Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has sought suggestions from traders, academicians, politicians and intellectuals with regard to Hartal's "alternative".

 

In June 2010, I published a series of articles in Early Times on Hartal which is reproduced here for the benefit of all concerned including fellow journalists, researchers, historians and students of journalism.

 

KASHMIR SHUTDOWNS---1

Kashmir shutdown on 1,562 days in 20 years

While losing Rs 100 Cr on each day of shutdown, J&K has suffered loss of Rs 150,000 Cr

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

__________

SRINAGAR, Jun 23: Thanks to the Valley’s militant outfits and separatist organizations, who have enforced 1,562 days of shutdown in the last 20 years of the secessionist movement, Jammu & Kashmir state has suffered loss of over Rs 150,000 Crore. Government’s contribution is also substantial as the state has additionally suffered loss of Rs 15,000 Crore on account of curfew on 150 days during same period of the political turmoil.

J&K state’s economy is estimated to have suffered loss of around Rs 200,000 Crore during 20 years of the separatist movement. This includes infrastructure destroyed by militants and security forces besides illegal felling of conifer trees and timber smuggling. Shutdown enforced by Hurriyat Conference, its constituents and militant outfits for 1,562 days till date, besides nearly 150 days of declared and undeclared curfew by the government, though mostly restricted to downtown Srinagar, have been the largest contributing factors. Loss suffered by the state’s economy on account of shutdown and curfew accounts for about 80% of the cumulative damage.

While the separatist groups and alliances have been enforcing shutdown mainly to protest human rights abuse by the armed forces, authorities have been resorting to imposition of curfew in extreme law and order situations from day one of the armed insurgency. Capital city of Srinagar, as also the key business townships of Sopore, Baramulla, Handwara, Bandipore, Budgam, Pulwama, Kulgam, Shopian and Anantnag have been the worst hit.

There were nearly 700 days of Hartal in Kashmir valley in the first four years of militancy. According to the official figures tabulated by Jammu & Kashmir Police, year 1990 witnessed 198 days of shutdown. It was followed by 207 days of shutdown in 1991---highest so far. Similarly, the Valley shut for 148 days in 1992 and 139 days in 1993. With the gradual improvement in situation, days of shutdown reduced to 24 in 1999 but again went up to 122 in 2001. Minimum days of shutdown in a calendar year were witnessed in 2007 when the business in Kashmir remained closed for 13 days.

Mainly due to the Amarnath shrine land allotment strife, Kashmir was shut for 33 days in 2008. It jumped to 35 in the first year of Omar Abdullah government in 2009 when Hurriyat and other separatist outfits succeeded in freezing the Valley for different intervals on account of alleged rape-cum-murder of two women in Shopian (which was not proved in CBI investigation) and several related incidents. Second year of the NC-Congress coalition government is threatening to prove worse as the Valley has already observed 22 days of shutdown in just 6 months and 23 days.

All individual outfits and both factions of Hurriyat Conference have been calling for a strike whenever an incident of human rights abuse happens or is perceived to have happened at the hands of Police or security forces. On several occasions, these constituents and alliances have enforced shutdown “in honour” of the militants killed by security forces in gunbattles. Over a dozen historical days, like Republic Day (January 26), Martyrs Day (July 13), Independence Day (August 15), Indian Army’s First Arrival (October 26) besides the assassination anniversary of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq (May 21) and death anniversaries of top ranking militants have been marked as red in Kashmir’s calendar. Hardliner separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has attained the highest profile among all political and militant leaders in enforcing a bandh in the Valley.

Sponsors of the shutdown have been justifying their calls for strike with the argument that it was the “only form of demonstration” with the Kashmiris. Though a large number of strike calls have failed to generate desired impact, most of such appeals have evoked substantial response. Guns, grenades and stones have also been used on certain occasion to enforce a shutdown, particularly around Lok Sabha, Assembly and Municipal elections.

(To be continued tomorrow).

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

 KASHMIR SHUTDOWNS---2


Courtesy shutdowns, J&K is on verge of economic collapse

General trade alone suffers loss of Rs 40 cr on each day of Hartal in Kashmir

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_________

SRINAGAR, Jun 24: If President of Kashmir Traders & Manufacturers Federation (KTMF), Sadiq Baqal, is to be believed, there are around 300,000 shops and various sales units in Kashmir valley. Quoting a survey, he said that 2,35,000 shops had been counted in the Valley two years ago. “In a comprehensive exercise, we have calculated that the Valley’s economy is suffering loss of Rs 100 Crore on each day of shutdown. General trade alone has been suffering loss of Rs 35 Cr to Rs 40 Cr on each day of shutdown”, Mr Baqal told Early Times [www.earlytimes.in].

Leading businessman and President Federation of Chambers & Industries Kashmir (FCIK), Shakeel Qallandar, seconded Mr Baqal and said that each day of a total strike would mean dent of Rs 100 Cr to the state economy. He added that the loss suffered by Kashmir was around 90% and even Jammu division, which rarely observes a shutdown, was being subjected to 10% of the damage on such a day.

With due regards to the spiraling macro economic indicators compiled by Directorate General of Planning and Statistics and presented alongwith his Budget in the Legislative Assembly by Finance Minister, Abdul Rahim Rather, Mr Qallandar insisted that Jammu & Kashmir state’s economy was on the verge of economic collapse. Taking exception to “prejudiced claims” from certain analysts in New Delhi and overseas that J&K was flourishing with a “visible as well as invisible economy”, Qallandar said: “Don’t go by the deceptive indicators of the flowing in vehicles and coming up houses. One must bear it in mind that J&K is currently suffering the trade deficit of Rs 27,000 Cr a year. Total volume of our exports is Rs 7,000 Cr today while as goods worth Rs 34,000 Cr are imported in a year”.

“Everybody in J&K is debt trapped. Residents have lifted loans worth Rs 22,000 Cr from different banks and their liquidity is dismal”, Qallandar added. According to him, in terms of overall economic development, J&K stood among the highest growing eight states in 1988 while as, mainly due to a hostile business atmosphere, it had over the years plummeted to the bottom. He claimed that in 2009, J&K was among the three states of the worst economic development. Yet another negative indicator was a survey by Transparency International which put J&K as India’s second worst state in terms of corruption.

With the state government’s latest statistics putting the number of unemployed youth (between age group of 18 to 37 years) at 600,000, Qallandar insisted that total number of the people with no assured or permanent source of income in J&K was currently 10 Lakh (one million). “Our unemployed ratio has already crossed the red mark of 10 percent. It was just 2 percent in 1988. With 1000,000 unemployed people, we, on the other hand, engage 500,000 skilled and unskilled labours from Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab and few other North Indian states every year. State does not have institutions to create its own workforce of the skilled labours”, he said.

Another leading entrepreneur, who wished anonymity, told Early Times that frequent shutdowns were the worst enemy of the Valley’s new generation. “If our separatist political leaders continued to fail to introduce some benign form of demonstration of protest in the next couple of years, they will be dismissed by history as the agents of destruction”, he cautioned. He revealed that thousands of youth from the families traditionally associated with Kashmir’s art and handicrafts, living on either side of erstwhile Nallah Mar Road, had been lured into a romanticism of stone pelting and enforcement of shutdown. “They neither work themselves not let others work”, he said while fearing extinction of Kashmir’s unique art and intellectual talent that made the Valley proud for centuries in the past.

(To be continued)

END

 

[On June 25, 2010, CRPF shot dead 2 civilians after it was attacked in Sopore by a group of people on concluding a search operation/encounter and the trail of three-month-long summer agitation was triggered off. Due to it, Part 3 of this series could not be published]

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Kashmir shutdowns

1990: 198
1991: 207
1992: 148
1993: 139
1994: 97
1995: 88
1996: 95
1997: 72
1998: 25
1999: 24
2000: 41
2001: 122
2002: 76
2003: 58:
2004: 25
2005: 18
2006: 26
2007: 13
2008: 33
2009: 35
2010: 22 (till 23rd June)

Total days of shutdown from 01-01-1990 t0 23-06-2010 = 1,562

[Source: Jammu & Kashmir Police]

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Syed Ali Shah Geelani's fresh calendar of shutdowns for June-July 2010

[As released by Hurriyat (Geelani) leader and Vice Chairman of Muslim League, Massarat Alam Bhat at a news conference in Srinagar on June 24, 2010]

25th June: Shutdown in Jammu & Kashmir

26th June: Hold mass prayers and Qanoot-e-Nazila at mosques

27th June: Write “Go India Go Back” slogans on walls and roads

28th June: Male students to wear black badges on their arms

29th June: Female students to wear black badges on their arms

30th June: Protest demonstrations at mosques between evening prayers

1st July: Women’s march to Pathar Masjid in Srinagar downtown

2nd July: Shutdown

3rd July: Shutdown

9th July: Shutdown

10th July: Shutdown

13th July: Shutdown plus march to two martyrs’ graveyards in Srinagar

3rd July onwards: Indefinite shutdown if Police/forces killed anybody in Kashmir.

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After 1600 days of shutdown, Hurriyat looking for alternative to hartal

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

SRINAGAR, Nov 18: Ever since its formation in 1993, Kashmir’s separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference faced criticism for debilitating the Valley’s trade and economy with its typical form of reaction to “excesses” by the government. However, it maintained for over 22 years invariably that Hartal was the Kashmiris’ “only tool of resistance” to everything---from the anniversary of the Indian Army’s first entry to Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Independence or Republic Day to a militants’ killing in encounter to a civilian’s “custodial murder”. Hurriyat’s detractors and satirists sometimes called it ‘Hartal Conference’.

The separatist movement and its armed insurgency being in its 26^th year, Hurriyat’s Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has now taken an unprecedented initiative of seeking Hartal’s “alternative” from the Valley’s politicians, academicians, traders and intellectuals. This inspite of the fact that Kashmir has already observed around 1,600 days of shutdown in the last 26 years and suffered losses to the tune of thousands of crores of Rupees on account of such strikes.

One of Kashmir’s seniormost mainstream politician, Prof Saifuddin Soz, who has served as a Minister in the Union Cabinet twice and headed Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee, was the first on Wednesday who welcomed Mirwaz Umar’s initiative and described it as a positive development. Mirwaiz had planned to convene the first session of the comprehensive discussion at the Rajouri Kadal headquarters of his own constituent, Awami Action Committee (AAC). According to the insiders, 250 participants had been invited to share their wisdom of the hartal’s “alternative” with the Hurriyat chief.

Significantly, the representatives of Hurriyat’s hardline faction headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani had also been invited. However, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government allegedly botched up the peaceful programme with around a hundred arrests and detentions. “Mirwaiz Sahab was held under house arrest at his Nageen residence while as almost all other political attendants were detained at Police Stations”, Hurriyat chief's Political Secretary Shahidul Islam told STATE TIMES.

Mirwaiz, nevertheless, addressed the session of around 150 participants by telephone. In his absence, Islamic Study Circle supremo Dr Yousuf Al-Umar presided over the deliberations. “Speakers gave varied alternatives. We jotted down all of these. It’s long process of finding an alternative to Hartal and will continue for some days”, Shahidul Islam said.

On Thursday, Mirwaiz will be available online from 1030 hours to entertain suggestions from respondents of his appeal all over the world. He will be personally responding to questions and reacting to the suggestions. “Since we used to face flak from different quarters, particularly from parents of the students, traders, academicians and intellectuals for sticking to the hackneyed form of the resistance---hartal---Mirwaiz Sahab decided to seek suggestions regarding alternative to shutdown whenever we need to register our protest or observe a historic day”, Shahidul Islam added. He said that the 40-year-old cleric-politician was open to any suggestion and he would take a call in consultation with other separatist leaders.

Earlier, a Hurriyat (M) spokesman said despite all efforts of the state machinery to scuttle the initiative by arresting or detaining many invitees and activists, a mammoth six-hour-long  meeting was held at Mirwaiz Manzil Rajouri Kadal ,which was attended by more than hundred fifty participants from across the board organisations, including the Bar Assosiation, Jamiati Ahli Hadees, Kashmir Economic Alliance, Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Association, Chamber of Commerce, Darul-Aloom Qasmiya, Darul Aloom Bilaliya and Kashmir Civil Society.

“Mirwaiz said that the aim of initiative is to get suggestions and ideas from people representing various sections and occupations of society at formulating a joint strategy and looking into alternate means of protest against continuous and growing state aggression, imposition of undeclared curfew especially in seven police stations, and detention and house arrest of resistance leadership. The Mirwaiz said that let each organization deliberate upon these objectives amongst themselves, compile their suggestions and select a representative who will put them before the forum. He said a forum could be formed where in these suggestions will be discussed by the selected representatives and the best ideas and suggestions conveyed to the top leadership who will then deliberate upon them and devise a strategy”, the spokesman said in a statement.

It added: “Mirwaiz said that the objectives outlined for the initiative cannot be achieved in a single meeting but will take time and as such it is a process that has been set into motion. He said that this process has to be all inclusive and anyone and everyone who can contribute to it is most welcome. He said that in these direction suggestions from people especially the Kashmir Diaspora and others will be invited online through social media”.

“While putting forth their suggestions, the participants said that it is amply clear that the government is day by day hardening its policy of suppression and intolerance of dissent and any and every form of freedom of expression is curbed. In such a serious situation it is incumbent upon all sections of society to find ways and means of how to resist this oppression and make the world take note of it and take the freedom struggle formed. The participants also thrust upon the resistance leadership to unite as that was the surest way to success”.

Among those who spoke on the occasion included, Masroor Abbas Ansari, Advocate Bashir Ahmed Siddique, Mohd Yasin Khan, Abdul Rehman Khan, Mufti Nasir ul Islam, Shakeel Qalandar, Aijaz ul Haq, Jan Mohammad Koul, Aga Syed Taqi, Mussadiq Adil, Dr. Sameer Siddiqui, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, Mushtaq ul Islam, Abdul Qayoom Wani ,Advocate Nazir Ahmed Ronga and others.

END