Separatists’ bid to kill Kashmiriyat is a flop

Pakistan’s lackeys, the Kashmiri separatists holding Indian passports and enjoying many governmental benefits, continue to feverishly organise terrorism and disruptive activities in Jammu and Kashmir, oft declared as an atoot angg (inseparable part) of India. The separatists, best defined as traitors, have been ardent celebrators of Pakistan’s Republic and Independence days, and have been joyously tucking in biryani with New Delhi-based Pakistani diplomats, while calling for shutdowns in Kashmir Valley on India’s Independence and Republic days. The Indian government provides them with bullet-proof cars, even as Indian security forces fight the terrorists supported by these separatists without enough, or without bullet-proof gear.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the ringleader of the pack of traitors, specially enjoys a distinct set of privileges from the J&K government, as it bends rules to provide his grandson Anees-ul-Islam a job of a research officer in the J&K’s tourism department. This job has been offered to placate Mr Geelani during the 2016 rioting in the Valley, organised by him. Such are the ludicrous policies of the Indian government.

The separatists’ activities during the bloody days of rioting in the Valley caused over 90 deaths, with many getting blinded and 32 schools being burnt. The separatists’ (Pakistan’s) agenda of radicalisation of the Valley populace, particularly youth, has been upgraded to trying to stymie anti-terrorist operations by security forces and helping terrorists escape. The visuals and statements of some of the young stone-pelters, boasting about hurling petrol-bombs at security personnel, belie the apologists’ claims that they are “our misled boys”; they all seem to be Burhan Wani wannabes. Indian Army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat stands totally vindicated. The “boys”, who recently injured 63 security personnel in a single incident, reportedly receive up to Rs 700 per day or Rs 5000 per month for their disruptive activities and have openly admitted to receiving instructions from Pakistani handlers.

During the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival in 2016, former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah had stated: “There is an effort of painting the entire problem as religious one. That Jammu and Kashmir is the way it is because the Valley has radicalised. I would be the first person to accept that there is a greater element of radicalism today than it was 25 years ago, but to suggest the entire valley of Kashmir is radicalised and everything you see on the ground is because radical Islam has suddenly taken over is not true.” He then spoke about how the situation came about and it being “very worrisome”. But there was no mention of the separatists and their role.

It is also true that there have been many instances of Kashmiri locals assisting the Army like the NGO called Shaheed Major Rohit Sharma Memorial Society that was formed in 1999 by the locals and headed by Mohammad Ali Mir of Mandi in Poonch district. It helps people in distress and provides financial assistance to needy school children and aims to improve the memorial for Indian Army personnel martyred there.

In September 2016, then GOC-in-C, northern command, Lt Gen. D. S. Hooda met civilians, including an elderly couple, who were taken hostage by terrorists in Poonch district and awarded them for their contribution in the three-day long encounter. In October 2016, when a vehicle of an Army convoy accidentally caught fire due to an engine fault, local youths immediately rushed to help, dousing the fire and pulling out the driver. In January 2017, during the avalanche in Macchil and Gurez sectors, civilians and porters came to rescue of Army men. Not all of Kashmir’s public is with Mr Geelani and Co. That is very obvious by some of the aforementioned incidents and became clearer during a recent recruiting drive by the Army which got an unprecedented response.  

What these separatists have been aiming at deviously is a systematic destruction of Kashmiriyat — historically based on Sufism — and replacing it with Salafism/Wahhabism, as planned by Pakistan’s Army/ISI. While the Indian Army and other Central and state police organisations are doggedly doing their duties despite their losses against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, which is expected to be stepped up exceptionally in the coming summer, no matter how high is the attrition rate of terrorists, there are way too many candidates educated in the madrassas and educated unemployed youth available for replenishment. Much of the Valley is seriously infected and requires urgent medication.

Political will must be exercised to neutralise the separatists, along with sustained use of social media to make Kashmiris of the Valley aware of the dire hazards of “azaadi”, by beaming visuals and accounts of the bloody happenings in PoK and Balochistan.

The writer, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi