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| ‘Recalcitrant’ Hurriyat leaders will remain behind the bars: Farooq | | None in Sheikh family is match to Geelani in contesting elections’ | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, May 10: President of the ruling National Conference (NC), DR Farooq Abdullah, has said that the Kashmiri separatist leaders would remain behind the bars in all elections in case they persisted with their “negative politics”.
In Take One TV’s current affairs programme “Face to Face with Ahmed Ali Fayyaz”, Dr Abdullah said it categorically that the separatist leadership would have to remain in detention whenever elections would be held in Jammu & Kashmir in case they continued with their “negative politics”. “If they continued to snatch away the livelihood of poor Kashmiri taxiwallas, ponywallahs, hotel owns and shikara operators with sloganeering and stone pelting, they will have to always remain in jail and write books on Kashmir’s history”, Dr Abdullah said.
Dr Abdullah, who is himself contesting election from the Central Kashmir constituency of Srinagar-Budgam, said that the separatist leaders had been detained “in the interest of Kashmir’s tourism and poor man’s livelihood”. “Had they been set free, there would have been sloganeering and stone pelting here and there which would have sent the tourists back. It’s government’s responsibility to protect the poor man from anything that cripples his living and daily earning”, Dr Abdullah said.
He said that in case of the moderate Hurriyat Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, there were more compelling reasons to keep him “protected at his home”. He said that his father and uncle had already been eliminated by his enemies and there was nobody other than the young cleric to head that dynasty’s political and religious activity. Asked why Mirwaiz had overruled his separatist colleague Maulana Abbas Ansari’s no-boycott stand and called for boycott and shutdown, Dr Abdullah said that Mirwaiz had been apparently influenced by certain people.
“It has to be seen and to be learned from the intelligence agencies as to who met and talked to Mirwaiz in New Delhi and he returned quickly to call for boycott to the elections”, Dr Abdullah said.
Dr Abdullah, however, challenged hardliner separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s call for boycott and said that he had contested as many as six Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and in all these elections he had sworn by Allah to owe allegiance to the Indian constitution and protect this country’s sovereignty and integrity. He said it was not good for any Muslim to break an oath taken in the name of God. He said that nobody in the Sheikh family had contested as many elections as Mr Geelani had fought successfully and unsuccessfully in the last 40 years.
Dr Abdullah said that while his parents had contested just two elections each, his brother Dr Mustafa Kamal and son, Omar Abdullah, had contested five each. “I have now become equal to Geelani Sahib as I have contested my 6th election yesterday”, Dr Abdullah said and argued that Mr Geelani had no moral authority to prevent others from contesting elections in Jammu & Kashmir.
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