Face of rage fails to hit nerve at home

Srinagar: A Srinagar youth was nicknamed Islam’s “Rage Boy” a decade ago and he soon became America’s most hated poster-boy of alleged Islamic radicalism and a blog favourite in the West and beyond.

Shakeel Ahmed Butt, who turned 39 a couple of months ago, has already spent over 20 years in jail, according to his brother.

During the past decade, he enjoyed occasional stints with “freedom” as the police and other law enforcing agencies perceived him a “serious threat” to peace.

On Friday, the J&K police again obtained ten days’ remand for him from a Srinagar court and he was shifted to the city’s central prison.

Butt was detained earlier amid clashes after the killing of a militant commander by the security forces in a counterinsurgency operation. Police said his liberty, during protests by separatists from July 8 to mark the first death anniversary of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Wani, would have gone against peace and public order.  

Butt was arrested for the first time in the 1990s for his alleged involvement in militancy. Since then, he has been detained or arrested, and then released, dozens of times.

He was sent to jail at least two dozen times under Jammu and Kashmir’s stringent Public Safety Act and various provisions of Ranbir Panel Code.

He claimed in a recent interview that he had been detained by the cops at least 400 times, mainly during streets protests. He added he felt proud that he had been lodged at all the police stations in Srinagar and ones in Baramulla, Sopore, Kupwara, Pulwama and Anantnag.

Butt is essentially a failed militant whose “biggest achievement” is carrying out an unsuccessful sneak rifle-fire attack on the cavalcade of then Congress leader and minister at Centre, Rajesh Pilot, along Srinagar’s boulevard, during the heydays of insurgency.

But media hype and “Islamphobic” campaigners made his face famous as it appeared on clocks, mugs, thongs and T-shirts.

The hype encouraged Butt to start thinking “global”. In 2007, he said he was with like-minded activists preparing to launch a new party to “defend Muslims’ interests across the globe”. He said, “I know they hate me but I’m not bothered at all... I would dedicate rest of my life for the cause of Islam and the Muslims.” He added, “All the 57 Muslim countries must join hands and fight back the enemies of Islam. They must severe ties with the governments and the nations that affront Islam, the Qur’an or the Holy Prophet.”

Despite his past, seen by his family as a “big sacrifice”, Butt is ignored among Kashmir’s belligerent youths, out on the streets on a daily basis.

Whenever out of jail, Butt turns up at demonstrations to protest any move against the “freedom struggle”, Islam or Muslims. Due to his angry look, he also gets photographed by journalists but he has failed to carve a niche in the echelons of the Kashmiri separatist movement.