News Analysis India

Tag: Kashmir crisis

  • Hardline separatist leader Masrat Alam appointed Hurriyat chairman

    By Express News Service

    SRINAGAR: The Hurriyat Conference has appointed jailed hardline separatist leader Masrat Alam Bhat as the new chairman of the separatist conglomerate after the death of senior separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani.

    In a statement, Hurriyat said that Alam has been appointed as the new chairman of the Hurriyat Conference.

    Alam, 50, who spearheaded 2010 summer unrest in Kashmir during which over 120 youth were killed, is presently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

    He played a key role in the split of the united Hurriyat Conference and forming of the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Geelani. Alam was General Secretary of the Hurriyat faction led by Geelani.

    Geelani, who was under house detention since 2010, died at his Hyderpora residence on Wednesday last. His body was quietly buried by authorities before sunrise on Thursday. His family members alleged that his body was forcibly taken and buried by police while police denied the charge and also released videos of his ablution and burial.

    The Hurriyat statement said after Geelani’s death, a consultative exercise was conducted with members of the executive council of the separatist conglomerate using different mediums to avoid arrests.

    “Shabir Ahmad Shah and Ghulam Ahmed Gulzar have been appointed as Vice chairmen. Molvi Bashir Ahmed Irfani will continue as General Secretary,” read the statement.

    On May 2, 2016, Geelani had stated Hurriyat headed by him will elect the next-in-line after his death.

    “Hurriyat knows what to do after his death. They will elect my successor through a consultation process,” he had said.

    Bhat, who had studied in Srinagar’s leading Christian missionary Tyndale Biscoe hails from Srinagar, is presently lodged at Delhi’s Tihar jail.

    He has so far been booked 37 times under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).

    He was for the first time arrested at the age of 19 in 1990.

    Alam has been in detention since 2015 and was shifted to Tihar jail after his arrest by NIA in a militancy funding case.

    In 2010, when Kashmir witnessed summer unrest, the government placed a Rs 10 lakh bounty on his head and declared him a “most wanted” separatist leader. He was later arrested on October 18, 2010.

    Like Geelani, Alam is a hardline leader and favours J&K’s merger with Pakistan.

  • Centre mulls release of more political detainees from Jammu & Kashmir

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  The first steps towards removing “Dil ki doori aur Dilli ki doori” as PM Narendra Modi put it in his meeting with 14 leaders from J&K were taken well before their meeting on Thursday.

    A few political leaders in detention were released days before the high-profile meeting was held in the capital and sources in Ministry of Home Affairs say that a committee will be formed by J&K L-G Manoj Sinha, who will go through the list of remaining detainees on a case-to-case basis. Release of more political detainees could be seen soon.

    “The L-G will constitute a committee which will go through a list of 40 people who are in custody under the PSA. Most of them belong to political parties. Based on various factors and depending on the feedback from security agencies their release will be looked into,” a source in the Ministry of Home Affairs told The New Indian Express. “Cases of those who were not charged with offences of violence will be reviewed,” the sources added.

    BJP leader and former J&K deputy CM Nirmal Singh, who attended the meeting, said: “In the meeting, the home minister shared data of detainees under PSA who are still in custody. He said there are 40 people who are detained under the PSA, and he said their cases will be reviewed by a committee.”

    Release of political prisoners was one of the key demands made by various leaders, including Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad, in the meeting with the PM and Home Minister Amit Shah. 

    In fact, in the run up to the meeting held on Thursday, several political detainees such as PDP’s Naeem Akhtar and Sartaj Madni were released last week. Akhtar was first detained in August 2019 and booked again under the PSA.

    After being released in June 2020 he was again taken into custody in December last year. Madni, the uncle of former CM Mehbooba Mufti, was released after six months of detention on Saturday and a day later Akhtar was also released.

    Experts have welcomed these developments. “In 2004 after the Hurriyat held two rounds of talks with the then deputy PM LK Advani, Advaniji asked them what it is that they want. They asked for the release of political prisoners. I think they gave a list of some 35 people of which the government ordered the release of around 12,” said AS Dulat, the former R&AW chief.

    Skandan Krishnan, a former IAS officer who served as an advisor to former J&K governor Satyapal Malik said “such a move will give the biggest fillip to the local parties”.

  • Indian institutions have stopped taking notice of human rights violations, UN should step in: Mehbooba Mufti

    Mehbooba said anyone who raised voice against the wrong measures of the Government of India (GOI) was labelled as quot;Pakistani agent quot;.