Tag Archives: Mehbooba Mufti

‘This is the prize for working for the nation,’ says Brother of BSF personnel and civilian killed in Poonch

December 24, 2023Martyrs of the NationMehbooba Mufti, Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed, Mohammad Showkat, Muslim Martyrs of India, Muslims of Jammu & Kashmir, Muslims of Jammu Kashmir, Muslims of Poonch District, Noor Ahmed, Safeer Ahmed, Shabir Ahmedmpositiveone@gmail.com

Baffliaz (Poonch District), JAMMU & KASHMIR:

In Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, three civilians, previously detained for questioning in connection with a militant ambush on Army vehicles, were found dead in the Topa Pir area. The victims were identified as Safeer Ahmed (48) and his cousins, Mohammad Showkat (28) and Shabir Ahmed (25).

The militant attack, which occurred on Thursday evening, claimed the lives of four Army soldiers and left three others injured.

Noor Ahmed, brother of one of the deceased civilians and a Head Constable in the Border Security Force, expressed profound grief, stating, “This is the prize we have got for working for the nation.”

Details surrounding the civilians’ deaths remain unclear, leading to unprecedented restrictions on movement and the suspension of mobile internet services in affected border districts. The government announced compensation and compassionate appointments for the families of the deceased.

“The death of three civilians was reported yesterday in Baffliaz of Poonch District. The medico-legal formalities were conducted, and legal action has been initiated. The Government has announced compensation for each of the deceased. Further, compassionate appointments to the next of kin of each deceased have also been announced,” informed the Information & PR, J&K in a statement.

While the Army’s Public Relations Officer in Jammu claimed no knowledge of the incident involving the civilians, allegations of torture marks on the bodies surfaced, accompanied by unconfirmed graphic videos circulating on social media. Relatives asserted that the injured were left by security forces on the roadside.

Former Chief Minister and President of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mehbooba Mufti, expressed concern over the reported civilian killings and called for a comprehensive and unbiased investigation. Mufti highlighted the shocking state of the victims’ mutilated bodies and widespread reports of torture on detained villagers.

“The ongoing miseries faced by the people of Jammu and Kashmir have reached a horrifying peak. Three innocent lives have been snatched away, their bodies said to be bearing brutal marks of torture while authorities have maintained a criminal silence,” Mufti said at a press conference.

In response to the tragedy, the local administration assured financial assistance, government jobs, and other support to the affected families. Poonch Deputy Commissioner pledged Rs 30 lakh to the next of kin of each deceased, along with a 10-marla plot at Surankote and a government job.

source: http://www.muslimmirror.com / Muslim Mirror / Home> India> Indian Muslim> Politics / by Muslim Mirror / December 24th, 2023

Four policemen killed in militant attack in Kashmir’s Shopian

December 12, 2018Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social IssuesAbdul Majeed Ganaie, Abdul Majeed Ganaie - Indian Martyr, Abdul Majeed Ganaie - Martyr, Anees Ahmed Mir, Anees Ahmed Mir - Indian Martyr, Asaduddin Owaisi, Constable - Abdul Majeed Ganaie, Hameed Ul Lah Ganie, Hameed Ul Lah Ganie - Indian Martyr, Imtiyaz Jaleel, Imtiyaz Jaleel - MLA - Aurangabad, Mehbooba Mufti, Mehraj Ud Din Dar - Indian Martyr, Mehraj-Ud-Din Dar, Omar Abdullah, Policeman Anees Ahmed Mir, Policeman Hameed Ul Lah Ganie, Policeman Mehraj Ud Din Darmpositiveone@gmail.com

Shopian District, South Kashmir, JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Police officers said that the policemen who were killed were guarding a minority picket, meant for security of a few Kashmiri pandit families in Zainapora area of Shopian.

Three policemen were killed by militants in Shopian on Tuesday. (File photo)

Four Jammu and Kashmir policemen were killed in a militant attack on a police picket in South Kashmir’s Shopian district on Tuesday. The attack was the first one by militants in the Valley after they suffered several blows in multiple encounters over the last one month in South Kashmir.

Police officers said that the policemen who were killed were guarding a minority picket, meant for security of a few Kashmiri pandit families in Zainapora area of Shopian. Four weapons belonging to the policemen were also taken by the militants after the attack, officials said. The four policemen have been identified as Abdul Majeed, Mehraj-ud-din, Anees and Hameed-ul-lah.

Majeed was a selection grade constable and a resident of Gandebal district, Mehraj-ud-din was a resident of Bandipora district in North Kashmir, while as Anees and Hameed-ul-lah were residents of Kulgam and Anantnag districts of South Kashmir respectively, officials said.

“We pay rich tributes to our colleagues Abdul Majeed, Mehraj-ud-din, Anees and Hameed-ul-lah who were #martyred in a #terror attack at #Shopian today. Our thoughts and prayers are with the grieving families at this juncture. RIP,” the state police tweeted.

Shopian district has witnessed a spurt in violence in the last one month. Apart from multiple encounters between security forces and militants, over a dozen civilians were abducted from South Kashmir villages by militants and two of them were killed on suspicion of being informers. The state police has recently claimed that they eliminated the top militant leadership in South Kashmir.

About the militant attack on Tuesday, police sources told The Indian Express that a group of militants entered the guard post of the minority picket. The militants fired indiscriminately, killing three policemen on the spot and injuring one. The injured policeman succumbed on way to the hospital, a senior police officer said.

After the attack on Tuesday, militants also posted pictures of the weapons taken by them from the police picket.

Senior state police officers, however, told The Indian Express that they are verifying the pictures that have appeared on social media. A senior police officer in Shopian said that they suspect JeM militants for the attack.

The mainstream political parties in the Valley condemned the killing.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said, “State has been at the receiving end with deaths, whether of a civilian, a policeman or a militant, becoming order of the day over the past three decades.”

Former CM Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, “Strongly condemn attack on policemen in Shopian claiming 3 precious lives…. Solidarity with families of jawans .Relieved that no harm caused to any civilians in the minority pocket they guarded.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> India / by Adil Akhzer / Srinagar – December 12th, 2018

Mehbooba Mufti wins Anantnag bypoll

June 25, 2016Community Involvement / Social Issues, LeadersChief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, District Magistrate Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, Hilal Shah, Ifthikhar Misger, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Junaid Azim Mattu, Mehbooba Mufti, Mufti Muhammed Sayeed, Syed Abid Rasheed Shahmpositiveone@gmail.com

JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

In the 2014 polls, Mr. Sayeed defeated Congress candidate Mr. Shah by 6,000 votes and the margin has doubled this year.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday won the Anantnag Assembly seat by 12,085 votes, driving home a point that her popularity remains unaffected by the Peoples Democratic Party’s decision to join hands with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir.

Of 28,500 polled votes, the PDP candidate Ms. Mufti has secured 17,701 votes, followed by Congress’ Hilal Shah with 5,616. National Conference (NC) Iftikhar Misger stood a distant third with 2,811 votes.

The PDP’s winning margin has considerably gone up in Anantnag despite the NC and the Congress pegging its campaign on the anti-BJP wave and cornering Ms. Mufti over her alliance partner.

In the 2014 polls, Mr. Sayeed defeated Congress candidate Mr. Shah by 6,000 votes and the margin has doubled this year with 12,000 lead by Ms. Mufti.

Earlier in the day, the counting was stopped immediately after the first round results were announced because of the Congress’ protests.

“An Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was not properly sealed and should not be counted at all,” alleged Mr. Shah, as he and his supporters left the counting hall in protest.

However, after 15 minutes the counting was restarted.

The NC also alleged EVM tampering. “A lot of EVMs in Anantnag (were) without mandatory seals/locks. Electoral staff says since teachers were incharge, their inexperience is the reason!” alleged NC spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu, who later congratulated Ms. Mufti on her victory.

However, district magistrate Syed Abid Rasheed Shah refuted the allegations of tampering of EVMs.

The Anantnag seat, which fell vacant after sitting chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed died on January 7, went to polls on June 22. Around 28,500 voters participated in the election out of 80,000 registered voters, with poll percentage pegged at 34 per cent, down by five per cent compared to the 2014 Assembly polls amidst separatists’ boycott call.

Considered bastion of the PDP, it’s Ms. Mufti’s fourth win to the State Assembly from south Kashmir since 1996, when she started her political career as Congress candidate and contested from Bijbehara constituency.

She was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag Parliament seat in 2014 general elections but returned to the State politics in April this year to take over as the State’s chief minister after her father’s demise.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Other States / Peerzada Ashiq / Srinagar – June 25th, 2016

Mehbooba Mufti Sworn In As First Woman Chief Minister Of Jammu And Kashmir

April 6, 2016Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, VideosAltaf Bukhari, First Woman Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Haseeb Drabu, Mehbooba Mufti, Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Naeem Akhtar, Tariq Karrampositiveone@gmail.com

Srinagar, JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Srinagar :

Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party or PDP took oath this morning as the first woman Chief Minister of the country’s only Muslim majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, at the head of a coalition government that includes the BJP.

The 56-year-old succeeds her father Mufti Mohammad Saeed who died in January this year. 23 ministers are taking oath along with Ms Mufti , including members of the BJP, whose Nirmal Singh will be Deputy chief minister.

In an indication of the struggles that lie ahead for Ms Mufti, senior PDP leader and lawmaker Tariq Karra boycotted the oath ceremony.

“I had a meeting Mehboobaji till late last night. I wanted three ministers who have played a dubious role and are responsible for the failure of Mufti Mohammad Saeed to be dropped,” Mr Karra told NDTV.

Mr Karra wanted Ms Mufti to exclude key PDP leaders Altaf Bukhari, Naeem Akhtar and Haseeb Drabu from her council of ministers. He alleges that they plotted to form government in alliance with the BJP without Ms Mufti as she refused to take oath for three months after her father’s death.

Ms Mufti dropped Mr Bukhari, but not the others. She has instead replaced two lawmakers who were junior ministers in Mufti Saeed’s team.

Mr Karra is no lightweight. In 2014, he defeated former union minister Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference in the general elections.

Ms Mufti has been criticised for delaying government formation as she wanted the BJP-led Centre to agree to several demands. But the BJP stood its ground saying it would agree to no pre-conditions for an alliance .

Last week, after a long stalemate, Ms Mufti’s meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared the way for a PDP-BJP government to take oath. But her struggle to manage a difficult coalition remains.

Former J&K chief minister and Ms Mufti’s main rival Omar Abdullah has prophesied that Mehbooba will face “more alliance contradictions” in the partnership with the BJP, an ideological opposite.

State elections in December 2014 gave no party a majority in the 70 member J&K assembly. The PDP, with 28 seats and the BJP with 25 had formed government after weeks of hard negotiations last year.

source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> All India / by Surabhi Malik / April 04th, 2016

Video Link : http://www.youtube.com

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed : A Life In Full

February 2, 2016LeadersAfzal Beg, Bijbehara, Hazratbal Shrine, J & K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Lion of Kashmir, Maulana Masoodi, Mehbooba Mufti, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullahmpositiveone@gmail.com

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (Photo: SAJJAD HUSSAIN/GETTY IMAGES)

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the ‘Lion of Kashmir’, died in September 1982. He was three months short of seventy-seven. He had been ailing, especially since a heart attack in 1977. Sheikh Abdullah’s funeral procession was gigantic. It may have been the single largest ever seen in the Subcontinent. The mass outpouring of grief was a measure of the stature he commanded among his people even in the twilight of his life. He had, after all, been the dominant figure of Jammu & Kashmir’s politics for a full half-century.

The apparent reversal in the Sheikh’s standing among his people was not as astounding as it might seem. The accord he made with Indira Gandhi’s Government in 1975 in return for his personal liberty and political restoration—after 22 years mostly spent in prison—was widely viewed among his popular base and in his own organisation as an abject surrender to and for power. The Abdullah of 1975-1982 was a lion in winter, a far cry from the leader who had long defied and dared New Delhi. In his last years, he even fell out with a lifelong loyalist like Mirza Afzal Beg, the only one of his four cabinet colleagues who had stood with him against the Delhi-sponsored palace putsch of 1953 that deposed him from power (Beg also signed the 1975 capitulation on his behalf). The grand farewell he got from his people on his death was in recognition of his decades of suffering in the cause of ‘self-determination’. The same sentiment, coupled with his party’s grassroots machine, propelled his resounding election victory in 1977 and his son’s equally emphatic win in 1983.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who has died a few days short of eighty, is not comparable to Sheikh Abdullah. For all his faults and flaws, the Sheikh is in a league of his own in Kashmir’s political history—the leader who brought mass political mobilisation to the Valley in the 1940s, emancipated the peasant masses from generations of serfdom through land reforms in the early 1950s, and challenged New Delhi’s machinations and stooges in Kashmir for more than two decades after his removal from power. Abdullah’s political capital was his mass base. The Mufti, for most (over two-thirds) of his nearly six decades in politics, was distinguished by the reputation he gained as a Machiavellian schemer and operator; he had almost no standing among his people and was disliked, distrusted, and perhaps even detested by most of his fellow-Kashmiris.

While I have not seen a single proper obituary of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in the Indian (or specifically the Kashmiri) media, it has emerged in piecemeal life- sketches that he began his political life in the late 1950s in something called the ‘Democratic National Conference’. This was a dissident faction of a cabal that was installed in office in Srinagar after the 1953 coup, which was formally executed by the barely-adult Karan Singh in his Sadr-e- Riyasat capacity and was followed by the suppression through police and military action of massive protests against it, with dozens killed in firing and thousands arrested.

The cabal, which comprised many though not all of Abdullah’s former comrades (there were important exceptions like Afzal Beg and Maulana Masoodi), falsely appropriated the National Conference name. The real NC was reconstituted as the Jammu & Kashmir Plebiscite Front in 1955 with Beg as its first president and the incarcerated Abdullah as its ‘patron’, and existed under that name until 1975. But the cabal in power developed a schism in 1957 when Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Abdullah’s successor as J&K’s Prime Minister, failed to appoint any members of the faction clustered around GM Sadiq to cabinet positions after the first elections to the J&K Legislative Assembly. The ruling pseudo-NC had ‘won’ 69 of the assembly’s 75 seats in these elections; of the Valley’s 43 seats, 35 had been won without any contest (‘elected unopposed’). After the rift, 15 of the 69 legislators joined the rebel group led by Sadiq. The rift was papered over in late 1960 through New Delhi’s intervention and the pseudo- NC entered the 1962 Assembly elections formally re-united.

Mufti retained his seat in 1967. It was again a cakewalk. By this time Bakshi was in the doghouse and the ruling party—led since 1964 by Sadiq (who made Mufti a deputy minister in his government)—had metamorphosed in 1965 into the Jammu & Kashmir Pradesh Congress. The Congress won a four-fifths majority— 60 of the 75 seats—in the J&K Assembly in 1967. Of the Valley’s 42 constituencies, 22 saw no contest, and 118 candidates who filed nominations were rejected, 55 because they had not taken the compulsory oath of allegiance to India and the rest with no reason given.

Only a very few undesirables got through this gauntlet. A young Plebiscite Front leader, Ali Mohammed Naik, took the oath of allegiance, managed to get his papers approved, and was elected to the Assembly as an independent from Tral, a southern Valley town fairly close to Bijbehara. Another successful opposition candidate was none other than Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, disgraced and sulking since his fall from power in late 1963. In 1967, J&K elected Lok Sabha members for the first time. The Congress won five of the six Lok Sabha seats, including two of the Valley’s three. The exception was Srinagar, where Bakshi stood on a platform of Kashmiri pride and won despite attempts by intelligence operatives sent from Delhi to ensure his defeat. When he turned chameleon and ran from Srinagar as a Congress candidate in the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, he lost badly to Shamim Ahmed Shamim, a journalist and Plebiscite Front supporter who contested as an independent.

The people’s interest and allegiance lay elsewhere, outside this ‘democratic process’. On 18 April 1964, Sheikh Abdullah arrived in Srinagar after being released from prison. The Central and J&K governments had decided to free him in a desperate bid to calm down the Valley, which had been in a state of uprising since end-1963, turmoil triggered by the temporary disappearance of Prophet Muhammad’s hair from the Hazratbal shrine but rooted in pent-up rage at the police-state repression and fraudulent governments since 1953. It was reported that Abdullah ‘entered Srinagar and was greeted by a delirious crowd of 250,000 people. Srinagar was a blaze of colour and everyone seemed out on the streets to give him a hero’s welcome… Addressing a gathering of 150,000 people on 20 April, Abdullah said that in 1947 he had challenged Pakistan’s authority to annex Kashmir on grounds of religion, and now he was challenging the Indian contention that the [Kashmir] question had been settled’. Abdullah remained at liberty until May 1965, when he was re-arrested under the Defence of India Rules, a colonial-era regulation used by the British against Indian freedom fighters.

In March 1968, during another, shorter spell out of prison, ‘almost the entire population of Srinagar turned out to greet him’ as he arrived in the city, The Times of India reported. It added that the hundreds of thousands were chanting: “Sher- e-Kashmir zindabad, Our demand plebiscite!” Days later, Abdullah told a 100,000-strong gathering in Anantnag that “repression will never suppress the Kashmiri people’s urge to be free”. In 1968, Abdullah also said: “The fact remains that Indian democracy stops short at Pathankot. Between Pathankot and the Banihal [Pass] you may have some measure of democracy, but beyond Banihal there is none. What we have in Kashmir bears some of the worst characteristics of colonial rule.”

Consistent with the normal pattern of progression of politicians, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed became a cabinet-rank minister in the J&K government after the 1972 state Assembly polls. The Congress had won a three-fourths majority, 57 of the 75 seats, under the leadership of Syed Mir Qasim, who became Chief Minister after Sadiq’s death in 1971. The 1972 election had a back-story. In 1969 the Plebiscite Front had run as independents in panchayat elections and swept the Valley. Then, in December 1970, the Front announced that it would contest both the Lok Sabha polls in March 1971 and the state polls in 1972. Qasim later wrote in his autobiography, My Life and Times (1992), that since its formation in the mid-1950s the Plebiscite Front had ‘reduced [the ruling group] to a non-entity in Kashmir’s politics’ and ‘if the elections were free and fair, the Front’s victory was a foregone conclusion’.

Speaking in Jammu city on 23 December 1970, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made it clear that she would not tolerate this scenario. Asked by journalists how it could be prevented, she replied cryptically: “Ways will be found.”

On 8 January 1971, ‘externment orders’ were served on senior Front leaders Afzal Beg and GM Shah (the Sheikh’s son-in- law), which required them to leave J&K. During the night of 8-9 January, 350 leading Front activists were arrested across the state under the J&K Preventive Detention Act. On 12 January, the Centre declared the Front illegal under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The only reason the Congress did not cross the four-fifths majority mark in 1972 was that five Valley seats were given to the Jama’at-i-Islami in an underhand deal. The fundamentalist pro-Pakistan fringe entered J&K’s legislature through the backdoor.

During the subsequent phase of Indira Gandhi’s wary accommodation of the Abdullahs—on her own terms—Mufti Sayeed emerged as her chief in-state henchman as J&K’s top Congress leader. The Congress-NC rapprochement famously broke down in 1983 and it is more than plausible that Mufti was a key player in the Delhi-sponsored conspiracy that brought down Farooq Abdullah’s democratically elected government in mid-1984. When Farooq’s brother-in-law GM Shah, the Congress-backed replacement, had outlived his usefulness and needed to be disposed of two years later, an episode of rioting targeting Pandits in villages around Bijbehara in March 1986 provided the pretext for his government’s dismissal under Article 356 and Governor Jagmohan took over. Mufti bitterly quit the Congress and joined VP Singh’s bandwagon after Rajiv Gandhi cut his own deal, with its well-known disastrous consequences, with Farooq Abdullah in end-1986.

During the political and human tragedy that engulfed Kashmir through the 1990s, the small town of Bijbehara became one of numerous sites of massacres of civilians. In October 1993, BSF troops fired on a march in the town taken out in solidarity with Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) militants besieged by the Army in Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine. Some three dozen people were killed and double that number seriously injured.

The Mufti’s re-emergence at the end of that bloody decade in a brutalised Kashmir in a completely new political avatar alongside his campaigning daughter was nothing short of extraordinary. The platform and rhetoric—dignity, self-respect, rights, and ‘self-rule’—were reminiscent of the Sheikh Abdullah of yore, albeit expressed in a less confrontational, more measured tone. By standing—at last—with his distressed, traumatised people instead of serving the masters in New Delhi, Mufti was able to build a genuine popular following.

The metamorphosis can and does have different explanations, from the romantic to the cynical. Yet one thing is certain. The septuagenarian Sheikh Abdullah was a spent, defeated politician. The septuagenarian Mufti was not. He performed competently as Chief Minister from late 2002 to late 2005, as J&K struggled to move beyond the violence of insurgency and counter-insurgency, until he was compelled to prematurely step down. A decade later, he was able to negotiate, in a spirit of equality, an ‘agenda of alliance’ document with the BJP, which embodies a concrete vision of resolving the Kashmir conflict in its multi-dimensional totality. Because of his past, he retained credibility among Jammu Hindus and Ladakhi Buddhists even while seeking to give voice to the grievances and aspirations of the Valley’s Muslims.

The later political life of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed— 1999- 2015 —has left a genuinely valuable legacy. Jammu & Kashmir, and India, cannot afford to—and must not—lose this legacy.

source: http://www.openthemagazine.com / Open / Home> Open> Voices> Open Essays / by Sumantra Bose / January 15th, 2016