Separatists got Kashmiri leaders shot: Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat
For the first time in the 20-year-long period of insurgency in Kashmir, a votary of the secessionist movement has made a brutally frank confession about the killing of some prominent men of his own ilk.
Abdul Gani Bhat (left) made the damning revelations at a seminar organised by the JKLF.
Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, a leader of the Hurriyat Conference's moderate faction, categorically said on Sunday that the security forces had played no role in the killings of separatist leaders Mirwaiz Maulvi Muhammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone as well as Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) ideologue Prof. Abdul Ahad Wani.
Instead, he pointed an accusing finger towards an insider hand. "Lone sahib, Mirwaiz Farooq and Prof. Wani were not killed by the army or the police. They were targeted by our own people. The story is a long one, but we have to tell the truth," he said candidly. Bhat, however, did not elaborate on what had transpired when the murders took place. He also did not mention the name of any terrorist group which killed them.
The separatist leader made these comments while addressing a seminar on 'Role of intellectuals in the Kashmir movement'. The day-long meet was organised at a local hotel by JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik to commemorate Wani's death anniversary. The three leaders were slain in separate incidents, and on each occasion, the locals as well as secessionists had claimed that the security forces had taken them out.
On May 21, 1990, unidentified gunmen barged into the downtown Srinagar residence of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq - the father of Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq - and assassinated him. Later, scores of people were killed when CRPF personnel fired upon his funeral procession near Islamia College in Srinagar.
Human rights groups claim that around 60 people were killed in the firing and hundreds of others sustained injuries. The separatists were quick to accuse the security forces of having carried out the murderous attack on the Mirwaiz. The firing on the mourners reinforced the ordinary Kashmiri's suspicions.
However, a TADA court jailed former militant Muhammad Ayub Dar last year for the killing. The CBI charge sheet said Dar, along with two other terrorists, shot the Mirwaiz. Its charge sheet named five Hizbul commanders also.
Wani was killed on December 31, 1993, by unknown gunmen. He was a professor of law in Kashmir University and an advocate of the JKLF's views. The academic was in the vicinity of the Hazratbal shrine en route to the university when he was shot.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Lone, the father of Sajjad (the first separatist leader to stand in a general election) and Bilal, was killed on May 21 in 2002. He was gunned down by unidentified assailants at a rally to mark the death anniversary of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq at Eidgah ground in old Srinagar city.
The leader was fired upon seconds before the ceremony was to end. Bhat, then the Hurriyat Conference chairman, was also present at the rally. No charge sheet was filed either in the case of Wani's or Lone's killings.
Speaking at the meet on Sunday, Bhat, a professor of Persian at Sopore Degree College, said: "If you want to free the people of Kashmir from sentimentalism bordering on insanity, you have to speak the truth. Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto once said that sometimes truth escapes the mouth. Here I am letting it out." He said the present movement against India was started by "us killing our intellectuals".
Bhat added: "Wherever we found an intellectual, we ended up killing him. Let us ask ourselves: was Prof Wani a martyr of brilliance or a martyr of rivalry?" Taking potshots at the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, he said: "On the one hand, he (Geelani) refuses to talk to India and, on the other hand, he talks with the Indian parliamentarians. These contradictions will have to go." Slamming the rival group for adopting double standards, he said: "When we entered into talks with New Delhi, we were accused of being kafir (non-Muslim), and when you (the hardliners) talk you get away scot-free. This dichotomy in Kashmir politics should end."
Bhat refused to be a part of any unity process between the separatist groups initiated by Umar Farooq. He said he would not be associated with any such move that would mean the "hegemony or aggrandisement of any person", making an oblique reference to Geelani.
Significantly, he was the chairman of the Hurriyat Conference when it was split into the hardline and moderate factions.
He said in the five months during which a strike was observed this summer, the Kashmiris did not achieve anything. He added that the local intellectuals refrained from writing on the issue.
Bhat, who has travelled to Pakistan many times during the past two decades, said the neighbouring country would not fight a war over Kashmir with India. "It is unlikely as both the nations understand its consequences." He also ruled out an armed movement against India in Kashmir, saying: "It will not have support from any quarter." "What next? We should do the talking," he said.
Spelling out the benefits of holding a dialogue, he said negotiation was an art and the right way to move forward.
Umar Farooq, who spoke after Bhat, however, did not even broach the issue.
Earlier, Malik, in his address, said Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was the tallest leader Kashmir produced in the past 63 years. But he said the Kashmir conflict dwarfed even the Sheikh.
"This holds true for all of us. Not one among the present crop of leaders should think that we are above Kashmir," he said.
Malik felt that in the past six decades, the Kashmiris had gained nothing.
"We have given sacrifices and gone through bitter experiences. But there has been no achievement," he said.
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