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| Inconsistent Omar Abdullah | | | Atul Razdan | 1/7/2012 10:18:25 PM |
| A political storm in Jammu and Kashmir was created over the death of National Conference worker Haji Syed Moham-mad Yousuf, in the police hospital in Srinagar on September 29, 2011. Syed Yousuf had earlier been accused by two other fellow party workers, Mohammad Yousuf Bhat and Abdul Salam Reshi of allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs. 1.18 crores, for getting them berths in the Legislative Council. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, to whom the complaint had been made by Bhat and Reshi, called all the three individuals to his camp office on the afternoon of September 20, where the Minister of State for Home was also requested to be present.
Haji Yousuf allegedly admitted having received money from the two complainants in return of promises made to facilitate undue (political) favours to the complainants. The Chief Minister asked Syed Mohammad Yusuf to return the money he had taken from the complainants to them and, in a television interview at a later date, freely admitted having done so. Omar Abdullah insisted that the entire issue was one of intra party discipline. It was no wonder Yousuf looked stressed, he added; so would anyone who had been caught and was being coerced to recant for his sins. Omar was indeed punctilious in dealing with this incident.
Though issue can be taken with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on many of his statements or actions on various issues, there is no denying that in the death of Mohammad Yousuf, the behaviour of the Chief Minister has been unexceptionable. He checked and contained a case of corruption within his own National Conference, action for which he cannot be faulted. If he had not done so and the incident had otherwise come to light, the Opposition could theoretically have demanded his resignation for the existence of corruption within his own party. It was a question of Omar Abdullah being caught between the devil and the deep sea. He stands damned for doing the right thing and would have possibly been damned if he had failed to act.
However, there has since been lack of acumen and consistency in the political behaviour of Omar Abdullah. This is best brought out by his own irrational and totally impractical demand the following month, and that too at a Police Commemoration Day function, that time was ripe for the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA), promulgated in the State since 1990, be repealed from some portions of the state "within the next few days"!
There was no apparent reason for the Chief Minister's sudden whim; he refused to back down from his demand, telling the state bureaucracy he wanted the laws repealed and informing army commanders, who were naturally against the repeal of the law, that saying no to the repeal of the law was an option that was not open to them. Is Omar thinking of starting a new totalitarian regime in India, the largest democracy in the world? Omar Abdullah insisted the law and order situation in the valley warranted the repeal of the law, quite ignoring the fact that the army had to make considerable sacrifices and expend much effort to maintain peace in the Valley and that the existing peaceful conditions were due to the presence of the Army. Any withdrawal of the AFSPA would serve only to negate the progress made. Such practical reasoning is not for our worthy Chief Minister, who clearly wanted do achieve some abstruse political gain in his home state by such grandstanding.
To such an autocratic statement, one possible response by which the Army and State administration unfortunately could not respond springs to mind: "Seig Heil, Herr Omar "!
Omar Abdullah had displayed the same irrationality in his now infamous musings on the fate of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru Alias Mohammad Afzal, who has earlier been sentenced to death. While one readily admits Omar could have been easily swayed by the "season of the day", what with politicians playing the regional card elsewhere in India and claiming mercy for the killers of Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Akalis launching such petitions for bomber and attempted murderer Devinder Singh Bhullar, a little more maturity and political savviness are expected from a national level politician like our charming chief minister. Or is Omar Abdullah, like any other politician, basically interested in bashing on regardless and the devil take the hindmost?
One really wonders where the new found truculence of the Chief Minister is now and whether he would still maintain his obduracy about the lifting of the AFSPA and DAA now, after militants shot dead a National Conference worker, Bashir Ahmad Dar, in Batamaloo near Srinagar, on December 24 morning. The 40- year old shopkeeper was shot dead at point blank range outside his shop in the morning, the shop being on the ground floor of a building that housed offices of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The militants responsible for the incident fled the scene before the CRPF rallied around to carry the mortally wounded man to hospital, but he was already dead by the time they reached hospital.
This was not the first time Bashir's family had been targeted: in 1990, his father Jamal, also a National Conference (NC) worker and Party Block President had been shot dead by militants. Responsibility for the latest killing was claimed by the Islamic Movement of Kashmir (IMK), which has come to notice earlier for two other killings. This relatively unknown militant group is felt to be a shadow outfit of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) by the security agencies.
Earlier in December, the State Minister for Rural Development and Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Sagar was also targeted by militants. While the Minister escaped unhurt, his security guard was killed and three other persons were injured in the attack. Two other NC block Presidents were also attacked and injured in late November and December
Whatever the parentage of the IMK, one thing is clear: the spate of attacks by militant organisations in the valley over the last month is a clear indication that the situation in the n valley has not returned to normal and militants can still practically strike at will. Any insinuation made by politicians in the valley that the Armed Forces themselves are responsible for the attacks is a canard that deserves to be treated with contempt: the Army is a professional organisation that is occupied with a serious and dangerous task of fighting militants. Playing games of the sort that are familiar to politicians and being involved in shenanigans like assassinations of petty party workers, just to make the point that the time is not right to lift AFSPA from the valley, is certainly not the forte nor the practice of the Army.
One thing is clear: it is time that Omar Abdullah admits his mistake in calling for repeal of the Act like a man. The situation in Kashmir is under control of the armed forces but certainly not peaceful. The fact the time is not ripe for the repeal of the AFSPA and the DAA in Kashmir has been reiterated by the Union Home Minister, the Union Defence Minister and also clearly stated by the Army. Yet Omar Abdullah insists in ploughing his own lonely furrow and has been insisting on a withdrawal of this law. Mercifully, since the spate of attacks by Militants in Kashmir in November and December on politicians at various levels, Omar Abdullah has maintained an almost embarrassed silence. Is this silence attributable to the fact that most of the party workers and politicians targeted have been from the National Conference? Omar's well known father as also other NC personalities have called for an end to the violence by 'undemocratic' forces and for the perpetrators to be brought to book and punished according to the law of the land. Meanwhile, our worthy Chief Minister seems to have developed a temporary case of amnesia with regard to his earlier call to repeal the AFSPA.
But then all is well-public memory is short and the people will soon forget Omar's ill conceived call to end this law. Time and the tide will flow on uninterrupted till the next time Omar Abdullah feels he has to come in from the (political) cold and make an attention grabbing statement to figure prominently in the Press.-WordSword Features. The writer is a retired officer of the Research and Analysis Wing and a journalist. The views expressed in the article are personal. |
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