The Hindu : Front Page : Secessionist leaders exchange blows

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Secessionist leaders exchange blows

Praveen Swami

Meeting called to discuss future of Kashmir Islamist mobilisation ends in chaos

SRINGAR: A meeting of secessionist groups, called to discuss the future of what has been characterised as the largest Islamist mobilisation since 1990, dissolved into chaos after members of rival factions exchanged insults and blows.

Leaders of the Ali Shah Geelani-led Tehreek-i-Hurriyat and Srinagar cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) charged each other with engaging in actions damaging the course of the ongoing movement, provoking their supporters to engage in scuffles.

Sources present at the meeting said APHC leader G.M. Hubbi was physically attacked by his Tehreek-i-Hurriyat counterpart Masrat Alam, and several important leaders, including Mr. Geelani and the APHC-affiliated Shabbir Shah, left the meeting in disgust.

Both groups had said earlier that they would organise a joint protest at Srinagar’s Idgah on Friday, where the future course of the agitation was to be made public.

It is now unclear if the two groups will be able to announce a shared programme of agitation, and, indeed, if their fragile alliance will survive Wednesday’s clashes.

Kashmir’s Mufti-e-Azam (chief cleric), had earlier denounced Mr. Geelani’s call for all Srinagar residents to offer Friday prayers only at the Idgah, saying it was repugnant to Islamic practice.

Simmering tensions

Tensions between the secessionist leaders have been building up since Monday when Mr. Geelani asked tens of thousands of people who assembled at a protest rally to endorse him as the leader of the secessionist movement.

Mr. Geelani also made clear his belief that the movement was for the cause of Islam, and Jammu and Kashmir’s incorporation in to Pakistan—assertions that incensed rival secessionist leaders such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s Yasin Malik.

Mr. Geelani later apologised for any offence his remarks—but did not withdraw his claim to be the principal leader of the movement.

Within the APHC, too, tensions have been high ever since Mirwaiz Umar Farooq agreed to unite with the Tehreek-i-Hurriyat in June.

The Mirwaiz and Mr. Geelani agreed to join hands just as protests against the grant of land-use rights to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board was picking up. Both leaders agreed to a three-point formula for joint action, in a declaration that appeared to meet Mr. Geelani’s long-standing demand that the APHC not engage in direct talks with the Government of India.

Senior APHC leaders like Bilal Gani Lone and Abdul Gani Bhat were highly critical of the unification plan, complaining that they were not consulted.

From the outset, Mr. Geelani defined the agenda of the alliance, relegating the APHC to the role of junior partner. Even the alliance’s first joint rally, a June 20 gathering held to protest against the sale of liquor, gambling and drug abuse, was led by Mr. Geelani.

Mr. Geelani also alarmed centrists in the APHC by characterising their joint movement as a struggle for the defence of Islam, rather than a political movement.

“Religious aggression”

For example, at the June 20 rally, Mr. Geelani decried the grant of land-use rights to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board as part of India’s “cultural and religious aggression.” He said India wished to force Kashmiris to “backtrack from the gift of Islam given to us by Mir Syed Ali Hamdani 650 years ago.”

Mr. Geelani also claimed that “universities and educational institutions are being used as platforms for spreading Shaivism, Kashmiriyat and degraded Sufism. Vice Chancellors of these universities are trained by intelligence agencies to percolate imperial and lethal occupational designs.”

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page