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| Barring Geelani, separatists prefer not to pay tributes to militant leader | | Kashmir's drastically changing dynamics! | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, May 24: Since the eruption of militancy in Kashmir, this has happened for the first time that the separatists have neither paid any tributes to a slain militant nor have hailed his services.
The division amongst the separatist ranks has become so notoriously visible to one and all that except Geelani, no separatist leader issued a statement.
Such a development hasn't been witnessed in Kashmir's political landscape till now that a militant leader has been killed and the separatists are silent, issuing no strike, no protest and no chalo calls- a practise that has become more or less a hallmark of Kashmir's separatist movement. It was only the 90-year-old octogenarian- Syed Ali Geelani who came up with a brief statement in which he issued a strike call against the killing of a civilian and militant leader Zakir Bhat alias Musa. Interestingly, it took Geelani more than a day to think whether he should issue a strike call on Musa's killing or not. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also issued a statement in which he didn't mention a single word about Zakir Musa and instead preferred firing salvos against the authorities for disallowing the Friday prayers. Yasin Malik's JKLF also preferred to remain silent over the issue.
The reason for such an unprecedented and unexpected practice is the rift that came to the surface in May 2017.
On May 12, 2017, Musa issued a statement in which he said that separatist factions must not interfere in his group's efforts to turn Kashmir into an Islamic state. "I am warning all those hypocrite Hurriyat leaders," said Musa in an audio tape. "They must not interfere in our Islamic struggle. If they do, we will cut their heads and hang them in Lal Chowk (city center)," he said.
Hurriyat is short for the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), an alliance of 26 political and socio-cultural organizations formed in 1993 to fight for Kashmiri self-determination. Jammu and Kashmir is India's only Muslim-majority state.
Musa, however, said the APHC have it all wrong. The struggle is "to impose Shariah in Kashmir." Leaders should not see it as a political struggle to establish a free secular state, he said.
Musa's statement came after several separatist leaders distanced themselves from the ideology of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and the Taliban, in a May 9 statement. The separatist leaders said IS and Taliban have nothing to do with Kashmir's "indigenous" struggle.
Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik then said in an APHC statement that Indian agencies are trying to give the separatist struggle in Kashmir "a bad name."
Now, with Musa dead, the rivalry continues to flourish and perhaps for the first time the separatists haven't hailed any slain militant or have preferred not to pay any tributes to him. |
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