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| Mirwaiz, Yasin supporters thrash pro-Azadi scribe | | Tirade on “imported brides” threatens more fragmentation in Kashmir’s separatist camp | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Sep 26: Half-a-dozen supporters of Kashmir’s prominent separatist leaders, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, were arrested by Police after they disrupted the news conference of a pro-Azadi journalist and manhandled him, alongwith his son, while ransacking the venue of their target’s news conference outside the office of a Superintendent of Police (SP) in Civil Lines here today. Editor of the local Urdu weekly “Qaumi Waqaar”, Shabnam Qayoom, who claims to be fighting for Kashmir’s Azadi with his pen, was addressing mediapersons at Hotel Ahdoo’s to complain that his ‘crusade’ against a separatist leader over the latter’s marriage to a Pakistani artist had evoked serious threats to his life from Chairman of Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Mohammad Yasin Malik.
Notwithstanding a rousing reception by his supporters to his lately acquired wife, Mushaal Mullick, on the couple’s arrival in Srinagar from Pakistan earlier this month, JKLF Chairman, Yasin Malik, has been in the eye of a storm from his detractors---overtly in media and covertly in politics. New Delhi-based Urdu weekly “Aalmi Sahara” and Srinagar-based vernacular “Qaumi Waqaar” have been running a tirade against the JKLF chief for his getting an “imported bride” from Pakistan. They have invariably reported that Malik had received gift of Rs one Crore from his in-laws in Islamabad and suggested that his marriage as well as his frequent visits to-and-fro had been arranged by the Indian intelligence agencies.
Correspondent of New Delhi publication as well as the editor of Srinagar-based weekly have taken objection to Malik’s marriage to an “outside elite” and bitterly criticized him for not having married “any of the Kashmiri martyr’s widow or sister”. Both have also downloaded and circulated Mushaal’s paintings from her website and attacked her with the accusation that she had been “making money with the art of painting obscene pictures of women”. Both have been alleging in their emails to mediapersons that they had received serious threats on their telephones from JKLF Chairman who had, according to them, threatened to eliminate the journalists and destroy their properties.
Malik being their prime target, the journalist duo has also extended offensive to two more of the Valley’s key separatist leaders---Chairman of the so-called moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and head of a faction of Peoples Conference, Sajjad Gani Lone---for having “married imported brides and ignored the sisters and widows of Kashmiri martyrs”.
Even as JKLF Chairman has chosen not to make any reaction and his organisation’s spokesman has dismissed the media campaign as a “frustrated writer’s blackmailing tactics”, Shabnam Qayoom today called a press conference to release a 5-page statement against Malik and other Kashmiri separatist leaders who, according to him, had first imported the gun and left one Lakh Kashmiris killed but had finally “surrendered” and imported fortunes and luxuries for themselves. Author of two books in Urdu, Qayoom has been proudly proclaiming himself as a freedom fighter while asserting that he had always used his pen for the cause of Kashmir’s Azadi from India. A number of his friends and foes in the separatist camp had conspicuously taken seats at the press conference even before the mediapersons’ arrival.
As soon as Qayoom, began reading out his 5-page text, one of the JKLF activists obstructed him and while shouting that the editor was “indulging in Mr Yasin Malik’s character assassination with a dirty canard”. Supported by his son, Qayoom continued with a few hiccups. Later, as soon as Qayoom referred to Mirwaiz and Sajjad and heaped his fire on them, a group of the Hurriyat chief’s die-hard supports, led by his spokesman Shahid-ul-Islam, ransacked microphones and manhandled the editor as well as his son. His son’s shirt was ripped into shreds as the Mirwaiz supporters were heard shouting that they would burn the “blackmailer” alive.
While as the editor called all of his targets from Malik to Mirwaiz as “stooges of the Indian intelligence agencies”, Shahidul Islam alleged that none other than Shabnam Qayoom was IB’s agent who was doing the duty of discrediting and berating Kashmir’s “prominent separatist leaders”. He asked how Shabnam Qayoom had been set free within a few days when he had been arrested by the Indian agencies on Nepal border alongwith a huge consignment of Hawala money while returning from Pakistan in 1994. He called the editor as “double agent” and said that he had written his first book on the money received from Pakistan and the latest one on the money received from India. According to him, Qayoom had exposed Pakistan’s guerrilla camps by taking their pictures and publishing the same in his latest book.
Minutes after the scuffle, during which Mirwaiz and Yasin supporters ransacked hotel furniture and damaged equipment of several photographers, Police reached the spot and took into custody half-a-dozen of the leading JKLF and Hurriyat (Mirwaiz) activists. They also took into preventive custody Shabnam Qayoom and his son.
JKLF spokesman told Early Times that all of Qayoom’s allegations against Yasin Malik were not only “malicious propaganda and part of a sponsored campaign of character assassination and blackmailing” but also aimed at breaking the movement of Kashmir’s Azadi with creating suspicions and confusions”. He said it was unfortunate that the “so-called editor” had stooped to a very low level and was being used “by others” to launch a proxy war on the JKLF Chairman. He said that Malik’s spouse was an internationally acclaimed and respected artist and their marriage was a purely personal affair having no negative bearing on Kashmir’s freedom movement.
Shahidul Islam asserted that Mirwaiz Umar’s wife was a Kashmiri and born of Kashmiri parents and the allegation of her being a “foreigner” was both false and unacceptable. According to him, men who had no respect for the peoples’ personal life and matters had no right to call themselves as representatives of the fourth estate. He dared Qayoom to explain how he had been tolerated by India inspite of his being a “champion of azadi” and how he had been released within days after his arrest with huge consignment of Hawala money on Nepal border.
SHO Kothibagh, Inspector Shafeeq Ahmed, said that acting on the editor’s written complaint, Police arrested four persons, including Hurriyat’s Shahidul Islam and JKLF’s Imtiyaz alias Bita Guru and registered against them case FIR No: 110 of 2009 under sections 341 and 323 of RPC. He said that after several hours of detention and questioning, all of them were released on bail and personal bond from each of them. He said that the editor and his son were rushed to hospital where doctors subjected them to medical check-up but did not found any injuries of fractures.
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