Resolving the Kashmir issue is the need of the hour and the NDA government has proven exactly how focused they are in dealing with it. In the last two months, the current government has cracked down on separatists operating in the valley. A major name which comes up among these is that of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik.
The crackdown included the booking of terror financiers and separatist politicians who have been hitherto untouched. Yasin Malik was arrested by the police in a late night raid on February 22nd from his Maisuma residence and was taken to the Kothibagh Police Station. He has been booked under the Public Safety act and been shifted to a Jammu jail.
The Modi government is seeking to expedite cases against Malik which have been pending for more than 29 years. However, instead of stranding with the current government, the former chief minister of J&K, Mehbooba Mufti has taken an anti-national stand by condemning the arrest of the terrorist and the banning of his organization.
Yasin Malik renounced violence as a way of resolving J&K issue a long time ago. He was treated as a stakeholder in a dialogue initiated by then PM Vajpayee ji. What will a ban on his organisation achieve? Detrimental steps like these will only turn Kash into an open air prison.
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) March 22, 2019
Even today, the Kashmiri Pandits break out in goose bumps at the mention of Yasin Malik’s name. He along with other members of JKLF, unleashed terror on the minority community of Kashmiri Pandits. Hundreds of Pandits were killed, raped and tortured in an unprecedented manner. The government of the day looked away, giving him and his men a free hand to continue the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. They did not protect the rights of the minorities which led to the infliction of heinous crimes and eventually drove the Kashmiri Pandits out of the valley.
Moreover, Yasin Malik is the main accused in the kidnapping of Dr Rubiya Sayeed, daughter of the then home minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed, and the killing of four Air Force personnel in Srinagar in 1990. As part of the ransom agreement, five terrorists were released which led to the subsequent insurgency in Kashmir. Mass genocide was committed against the Kashmiri Pandits. Newspapers carried advertisements by terrorists, threatening the Hindus of the Valley to leave in 72 hours or face the consequences. Posters were pasted outside homes of Pandit families with threats that their womenfolk would be kidnapped, raped and converted if they did not leave. By such gruesome terrorism, JKLF ensured that the valley was completely deprived of Kashmiri Pandits.
After the atrocities had been committed, Malik found a way to play the government to avoid punishment. He declared that he turned “Gandhian” to continue his struggle against India. Politicians, along lines similar to those followed by Mehbooba Mufti started advocating his “non violence”.
The government, so enamoured with his “Gandhian ideology”, turned a blind eye to all his crimes and allowed him to travel to Pakistan where he shared the stage with Hafiz Saeed, the chief of the same organisation that has bled India dry — Lashkar-e-Toiba.
However, showing Malik’s true intentions came to light at a 2009 event on Kashmir in Delhi, Yasin Malik thundered, “Give us independence or don’t hold us responsible if we pick up the guns again.”
Completely abandoning his face of “non-violence”, Yasin Malik has been involved in destroying and burning government buildings and schools and in attacking security forces. He continued to wage a war against India, by instigating stone pelting, arson and rioting in 2010, which led to the death of more than a hundred. Endorsing every act of terror by JeM, LeT, Hizbul and others, he called on protests to mourn the death of terrorists.
In an interview with a foreign news channel, Yasin proudly defended the killing of the air force officers, calling them his enemies. None of his actions indicate a Gandhian, non-violent ideology and yet when he is called upon to pay for his crimes, leaders like Mehbooba Mufti begin protesting. Those very leaders who call upon the nation to “protect the rights of the minorities” remained mum when the actual minorities were being openly tortured and forced out of their home. The separatists have their redemption long coming and with the crackdown on Yasin Malik, the Modi government has made sure the culprits of the Kashmiri pundit genocide will not go unpunished.