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| Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq almost dead in attack | | Al-Nasireen’s loud and clear warning to actors of ‘quiet diplomacy’ | |
AHMED ALI FAYYAZ
SRINAGAR, Dec 4: Senior separatist leader and a member of the Executive Committee of Hurriyat Conference (Mirwaiz faction), Fazal Haq Qureshi, today became the first casualty of the cacophony of ‘quiet diplomacy’ and secret dialogue between the Kashmiri secessionists and Government of India when a guman in ambush pumped pistol shots into his head while returning to home after performing the evening prayers at a mosque in Soura outskirts of this capital city. Doctors at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura passed the nearly dead Qureshi through a surgical procedure but maintained that he was “very unlikely to recover”. Hurriyat has pointed fingers on the separatist hardliners and, in protest, called for a shutdown in the Valley on Saturday.
Inspector General of Police Kashmir Zone, Farooq Ahmed, told Early Times that 63-year-old separatist leader, Fazal Haq Qureshi, was found by passers-by lying in a pool of blood at 1750 hours between his usual place of worship and residence in Soura. Residents believed that he had been ambushed by armed assailants immediately after he performed his evening prayers at a local mosque and was returning to his alone, possibly alone. Some people around the spot told Police that they heard at least one gunshot and took it for a firecracker. In minutes, some passers-by spotted Qureshi lying in a pool of blood. He was quickly evacuated to SKIMS where doctors examined him and found him “almost dead”.
IGP said that in view of his general threat perception, Qureshi had been, on several occasions, offered Police protection but he had invariably declined to live as a protected person. He maintained that Police and security forces had not received any inputs suggesting possibility of a terrorist attack on Qureshi.
A founder member of Kashmir’s pioneer guerrilla group ‘Al-Fatah’ in early 1970s, Qureshi had joined Government service after his release from jail. For several years, he worked in Civil Secretariat. Later, he joined pro-Pakistan Peoples League and quit government service. In the year 2000, Qureshi had played key role in arranging the first ever dialogue process between senior commanders of the formidable Hizbul Mujahideen and Government of India, represented in the talks by then union Home Secretary Kamal Pandey. However, the process was aborted within two weeks by Hizbul Mujahideen’s Pakistan-based “Supreme Commander” Syed Salah-ud-din, who developed serious differences with regard to the dialogue process with one time confidante Abdul Majeed Dar.
After Hurriyat’s split in 2003, Qureshi founded a new organization, namely Peoples Political Party (PPP) which was admitted as a constituent of the Executive Committee of Hurriyat Confeence (Mirwaiz faction). Alongwith Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Gani Lone and Maulvi Abbas Ansari, Mr Qureshi had, of late, emerged as a strongly pro-dialogue leader in the separatist camp. This group of so-called moderate leaders has been facing bitter criticism for favouring bilateral talks with New Delhi and Islamabad separately not only by almost all the militant outfits and hardliners like Mr Geelani but also from colleagues in the Mirwaiz faction of Hurriyat, notably Shabir Ahmed Shah and Nayeem Ahmed Khan.
While most of the separatist leaders in Hurriyat (Mirwaiz), JKLF Chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik and a number of mainstream leaders, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, condemned it as a cowardly attack by “saboteurs of the dialogue”, Hurriyat (G) Chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, too called it un-Islamic and said that the assailants deserved to be punished. Parallel to a chorus of condemnations, someone called the local news agency, Kashmir News Service (KNS), over telephone, identified himself as Al-Nasireen guerrilla outfit’s spokesperson, Abdul Waheed Sheikh, and claimed that the militants of his organization had attacked Qureshi for being part of the ‘secret dialogue’ with India.
Most of the prominent separatist leaders, notably Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Gani Lone, Masroor Abbas Ansari, Mohammad Yasin Malik and Mohammad Nayeem Khan visited SKIMS and enquired about Qureshi’s condition. IGP Kashmir, Farooq Ahmed, SSP Srinagar Javed Riyaz Bedar and other middle-rung Police officers remained present at SKIMS as long as surgery continued on Qureshi. IGP said that the doctors had operated upon Qureshi and found an entry wound but no exit. According to the doctors who spoke to IGP, a bullet could have ricocheted after breaking a bone in Qureshi’s brain.
Doctors told Early Times that on the initial examination, they found Qureshi’s heart rate and BP zero with no functioning of lungs. They said that the brain matter was found to have come out which was put in place. They said that Qureshi’s recovery would depend much on revival of his lung and heart functioning but maintained that chances of his recovery were bleak. They said that no bullet was found in Qureshi’s head but vital bones were found badly fractured, possibly due to a gunshot from point blank range. After the surgery was completed successfully, Qureshi was removed from Operation Theatre to the ICCU at 2200 hours tonight.
Mirwaiz condemned the murderous attack on Qureshi as a dastardly act by “those who do not want resolution of the Kashmir problem”. He called for a shutdown in the Valley in protest. Mirwaiz said in a reaction to the attack on his colleague that it was the handiwork of “those whose shops could be shut” in the resolution of the Kashmir crisis.
Before today’s murderous attack on Qureshi, a number of prominent separatist leaders---including Mirwaiz Umar’s father Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq (1990), Bilal Gani Lone’s father Abdul Gani Lone (2002), Qazi Nisar Ahmed (1994) and Sheikh Abdul Aziz (2008)---have died in almost identical attacks in the last 20 years of separatist movement in Kashmir.
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