Merely withdrawing AFSPA won’t do, am ready for jail: Mirwaiz (Roundup)

NEW DELHI - The mere withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir won’t do, Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq said Sunday, adding he was “ready to go to jail” following an FIR filed against him by the police for inciting large-scale violence in Srinagar after Eid prayers.

Speaking to IANS on the telephone from Srinagar, he also expressed “utter dismay” over what he called “the negative attitude of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)” towards political moves to defuse the volatile situation in the Kashmir Valley.

“There is no point in making cosmetic announcements. What is the point in discussing withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFPSA) or other black laws from Jammu or Samba districts, which are unaffected,” Umer Farooq, who is also the Mirwaiz (head priest) of Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid, and chairman of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, said a day before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meets to discuss the Kashmir situation.

“It should be withdrawn from districts like Baramulla and Kupwara, where people are suffering because of these draconian measure,” he added.

“We need serious measures, maybe even step-by-step to resolve the Kashmir issue. Not half-hearted official rituals,” the Miwaiz said.

The CCS meeting Monday to be presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is likely to discuss a slew of measures, including partial withdrawal of the AFSPA from some districts in the Valley and the Jammu region. At least 70 people have died in Kashmir Valley since June 11, mostly in firing by security forces on protestors.

On the FIR lodged against him, he said: “I am not afraid of arrest. I am ready to be arrested. We all are ready to go to jail for the cause of the people of Kashmir.”

The FIR has been filed against the 37-year-old Mirwaiz and his colleagues on charges of inciting violence and arson after mobs torched four government offices in Srinagar during a massive pro-separatist rally Saturday.

“FIRs and arrests are nothing new to me and Kashmiris,” said the Mirwaiz.

“In fact, for the past six consecutive Fridays I have been kept under house arrest and prevented from offering prayers at the Jamia Masjid (ancestral seat of preaching for his family),” he recalled.

“I should not fear arrest when thousands of Kashmiris have been killed, arrested or tortured,” he said. “Even 10-year-olds and teenagers have been killed in police firing and atrocities,” he added.

He ridiculed the statement of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in New Delhi Saturday accusing the Mirwaiz and other separatists of “betraying the promise that the rally would be non-violent”.

“It is a pitiable tactics by a battered government to retrieve its sagging image,” the Mirwaiz said.

As for the BJP, he said it “should not forget it was their leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his government which had initiated the dialogue with Kashmiri groups in 2004″.

“We responded when Vajpayee saheb said, ‘Let us begin the Kashmir dialogue in the context of humanity’. The BJP should not forget Vajpayee and his effort,” the Mirwaiz said.

The Mirwaiz was referring to the BJP’s criticism of Hurriyat leaders and remarks that the government’s moves to review the AFSPA in Kashmir would lower the morale of the security forces.

“The BJP should give up its rigid attitude and start educating the people of India about the realities in Kashmir.”

“The BJP should make people understand that the struggle by Kashmiris is not against the people of India. It is for the just aspirations of the people of the state, as promised by the founding fathers of the Indian state and agreed upon before the United Nations.”

“Nor is the struggle in Kashmir by a Muslim Kashmir against a Hindu India,” the Mirwaiz said.

BJP general secretary and spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad Sunday blamed the Hurriyat and separatists for the worsening situation in the Valley. “There is a pattern behind the violence which is orchestrated by handlers from across the border under the patronage of (Pakistani intelligence agency) the ISI,” Prasad had said.

He said the separatists have been unmasked after violent incidents during a pro-separatist rally in Srinagar after Eid prayers Saturday.

(George Joseph can be contacted george.j@ians.in)