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| They keep playing politics on Guru's body | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 22: The execution of the Parliament attack convict Mohd Afzal Guru, seems to have given a handle to the Kashmiri separatists to re-establish their relevance and presence in the Valley where they have been instrumental in ruffling the calm waters of its lakes. Their presence and relevance would have gone unnoticed and unheeded had not Pakistan provided moral and material support to those gun toting youths who had received arms training in camps in Pakistan and occupied Kashmir during the last over two decades.
These separatists miss no opportunity for registering their presence by motivating people to stage protest rallies and paralyse normal life over issues that have had the backing of Pakistan. Well if Mohd Afzal Guru had played his role in organising a terrorist strike on the Parliament building in 2001 he had done it not on his own but at the behest of agencies in Pakistan. What is surprising is the way some Kashmiri separatists, who have been ignored by the establishment in Muzaffarabad and in Islamabad, were trying to make their presence felt by supporting any campaign launched by a section of people in the Valley. And the latest to poke his nose in the internal affairs in Kashmir is none other than the chief of the Muzaffarabad based United Jehad Council, Syed Salah-ud-Din, who has the distinction of having crossed over to Occupied Kashmir for guiding Kashmiri boys for getting ready for waging struggle against India in Kashmir but preferring himself to stay put in Muzaffarabad to be on the sidelines of the ongoing battle between reason and ignorance, between logic and fanaticism and between truth and fraud.
Salah-ud-Din has the habit of commenting even on a bird getting killed in the gun fire opened by the Indian security forces in Kashmir. But he has shown the habit of ignoring events that may be connected even with the massacre of innocent civilians by militants in the Valley. So how could he sit mum on a major issue like the execution of Afzal Guru. Terming the execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru as a 'murder carried out after trampling all legal and judicial norms', Salah-ud-Din has called on Kashmiris in general and Afzal's family in particular not to beseech Government of India for return of his body. He has opposed making pleas and applying for return of his body or mortal remains does not suit the stature of a 'martyr'.
The whole judiciary and Government machinery including the Supreme Court and President of India have their hands stained with the blood of Afzal Guru and people should not turn to them beseeching for the return of the body. Seeking such favours from the murderers does not look good, the Council chief has stated. As was expected he has asked Kashmiris to continue their struggle after Afzal Guru's execution having given a new lease of life to the 'ongoing movement' in Kashmir.
And this is what separatists and some mainstream political leaders in Kashmir have been doing since February 9 when Guru was sent to the gallows. If the separatists plan to play politics of their rehabilitation on the execution of Guru and on his mortal remains the mainstream politicians, especially those belonging to the Kashmir centric National Conference and the PDP, have been seen playing the politics of vote bank. By registering their anger and anguish over Guru's execution and by crying over the refusal of the Centre to return Guru's body to his family members the NC and the PDP want to keep their vote bank in the Valley intact when the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections are due next year.
In fact since 2002, when the PDP got a chance to head the coalition Government in alliance with the Congress, it has been locked in a fierce political tussle with its arch rival, the National Conference. Since it is a question of mere survival for both the parties the two keep on trying all the tricks, allowed in the trade of politics, for outwitting each other. Well it was expected from the separatists if they tried and are still trying to stoke flames of anti-India hatred and anger in Kashmir but for the two main and major political parties, the NC and the PDP, it was expected that their leaders would play a positive and constructive role in dousing the flames of anger and violence.
If they have not done it is simply the outcome of their desire to prevent rival forces from eroding the strength and size of their vote banks. Time has come for people in Kashmir not to be pawns in the hands of the separatists' propaganda nor should they become prey to the machinations of the NC against the PDP and the vice versa. |
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