Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR, Nov 11: Former separationist and chairman of the People’s Conference (PC), Sajad Gani Lone has said he believes long agitations are no longer suitable to press for demands in Kashmir where violence which has lasted for more than two decades is slowly giving way to peace.
“There is no need to launch such agitations which scare away tourists and restrict children from going to school. There are many other ways to protest for genuine demands of people,” Lone told to a local news agency on Saturday.
Although Lone has not named anyone, his statement comes at a time when senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani plans to launch an agitation over the construction of a macadamised road to the Hindu Amarnath cave shrine.
“Agitation threats should not be issued by anyone,” he said.
Geelani, who heads the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference, has accused New Delhi and the state government of constructing a permanent road to the Amarnath cave shrine – one of the holiest pilgrimage sites for Hindus – to pursue their “political and communal agenda”.
The government denies any plans for constructing the road.
But the octogenarian leader said he believes the government was going ahead with the construction and has warned of an agitation if the plan was not shelved. He has also set up a five-member committee to hold wide-ranging deliberations to chalk out future course of action on the issue.
‘Unproductive’
But Lone, who has led some of the massive anti-government demonstrations in the Valley in the past before becoming the first separatist leader to contest polls, said he strongly condemned agitations and strikes.
“It has adverse effects on the common man. People can hold peaceful dharnas (sit-ins) across the Valley or go for a brief one hour shut down rather than having a ninety day shut down,” he said.
Geelani issued calendars of sorts for organising shutdowns or protest demonstrations in 2008 – during agitation over the transfer of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board in which more than 60 people died in police or paramilitary firing – and also in 2010 when at least 111 people died during violent anti-India protests which continued for months.
The transfer of land was revoked by the government, but, Lone said, the agitation of 2010 did not benefit anyone in any manner and only had an adverse effect on the common people of Kashmir.
‘Bitter Past’
Lone and Geelani have no love lost for each other as they have had a series of spats in the past after the former was accused of fielding proxy candidates in the state elections in 2008, when he was still part of the separatist quarter.
Lone had retorted back by calling Geelani “a liar who worked in tandem with Indian agencies”.
In 2009 Lone contested the parliamentary elections from the Kupwara-Baramulla constituency, but said during campaigns that he had only “changed his strategy and not his ideology”.
You may also like to read: Separatist breaks ranks in Kashmir polls
Refuting allegations that he had also, while defending himself against Geelani’s accusations, swore upon the Quran never to contest polls, he said: “(In 2008) I never took Qur’an in my hands to swear that I would not contest elections. What I said was that I have not fielded any proxy candidates.
When it comes fighting elections, other separatists also fought elections, If Allah will punish me for fighting elections, He will punish them also. If Allah has exempted them from every sin, then it becomes a different story.”
