Security was tightened in the Kashmir Valley on Friday due to the death anniversaries of Mirwaiz Farooq, father of Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Abdul Ghani Lone, father of Peoples Conference (PC) chief Sajad Lone.
Concertina wires and barricades were erected on many stretches leading to the volatile old city. Extra deployments were made to seal lanes and bylanes in and around Nowhatta area and the Eidgah, where the two separatist leaders are buried. Unidentified gunmen assassinated Farooq on May 21, 1990 and Lone on May 21, 2002 .
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The Mirwaiz, also chairman of the Hurriyat, remained under house arrest at his Nigeen residence. He was placed under house arrest on August 5, 2019, when the Centre revoked J&K’ss special constitutional position.
PC chairman Sajad Gani Lone said his father was killed for speaking the truth and expressing his ideas. “Those who opposed my father and created false narrative that ended up in his killing saw what his father was mercifully spared from seeing. But what gives me some solace is that those who opposed him and created that false narrative that culminated in my father being killed- that crowd, some of them still alive, were better dead than alive. They saw what my father was mercifully spared from seeing,” he said in a tweet.
He said the worst form of oppressors were those who oppressed under the fig leaf of fighting oppression. “As long as we do not stop collectively lying, especially on who killed whom, we as people will continue to be in the state that we are. People deserve to know-oppressors have many forms. And the worse form of oppressors’ are those who oppress under the fig leaf of fighting oppression,” he added.
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He said his father “symbolised dignity and symbolised sacrifice”. “He went at the right time. He left a hero,” he added.