Sunday's remark by the former Hurriyat Conference chairman, Abdul Gani Bhat, that “our own people” killed Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone, and academicians like Abdul Ahad Wani has created a flutter in Kashmir.
Professor Bhat, at a seminar organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in Srinagar to pay tributes to one of its ideologues, Professor Wani, had said: “Lone sahib, Mirwaiz [Mohammad] Farooq, and Professor 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 added: “If you want to free the people of Kashmir from sentimentalism bordering on insanity, you have to speak the truth. Here I am letting it out. The present movement against India was started by us killing our intellectuals.”
Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq, father of the Hurriyat Conference's current chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was killed by “unidentified gunmen” on May 21, 1990.
Lone was killed on the same day in 2002 during the anniversary of the late Mirwaiz.
Wani was killed on December 31, 1993, by unknown gunmen. He was a professor of law at the 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.
In the case of the Mirwaiz, the TADA court jailed a former militant.
Ironical, says DGP
Director-General of Police Kuldip Khoda on Monday said in Jammu that Professor Bhat's statement was significant.
“The irony is that the killer of Mirwaiz [Mohammad] Farooq is buried in the same ‘martyrs' graveyard in Srinagar,” Mr. Khoda said. “Both the killer and killed are martyrs for them.”
He said the separatists knew all along that militants were behind political killings in Kashmir, but “they would not dare to say this.”
‘Truth must prevail'
People's Conference chairman Sajjad Lone, son of the late Abdul Gani Lone, wanted the “truth” to be made public in order to help the “Kashmiri nation to evolve.”
Mr. Sajjad Lone was the first to blame Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and hardline separatists for the killing of his father in 2002. But he was “silenced” after a backlash from some quarters.
Mr. Sajjad Lone wrote on his Facebook page: “Prof. Bhat's statement is yet another chance for the nation to evolve. Truth, however bitter, must prevail. The least we owe to the people is the right to know who killed whom.”
On Twitter, he was more belligerent. “Tacit sanctity of institutionalised roguery within the State has contributed to killing of politicians in Kashmir in last 20 years.”
‘Intellectual honesty'
He told The Hindu: “Professor Bhat's statement should be welcomed by right-thinking people as the truth in such cases has been under wraps. This kind of intellectual honesty will help to build a healthy atmosphere in Kashmir.”
The Hurriyat Conference, headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chose not to react to the statement. “It does not merit any reaction,” was the curt reply from Ayaz Akbar, the spokesman.
