SRINAGAR: Imran Reza Ansari, a prominent Kashmiri Shia leader, on July 24 walked out of a meeting with Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, reported The Hindu. The meeting involved a heated exchange with Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta concerning the arrangements for this year’s Muharram.
Over the past month, the J&K administration had been in communication with Shia leaders from Kashmir to finalise the details of the Muharram processions in the Valley. They also discussed the possibility of lifting the ban on processions that had been held in the city centre, Lal Chowk, prior to 1990 when militancy erupted in the region.
In his statement, Ansari expressed his dissatisfaction with the arrangements and amenities provided for the Muharram processions. “They need to look at the conditions of basic amenities like running tap water, roads, electricity etc,” Ansari said.
“I pointed out how L-G Sinha, who is occupying the highest position in J&K, and other senior officials, visited Amarnath shrine multiple times but failed to visit Shia area. The L-G’s visit would have sent a positive message to the community as well as to the administration. I walked out when I sensed I was being given a dictation,” Mr. Ansari, who heads the All Jammu And Kashmir Shia Association, told The Hindu.
The J&K Peoples Conference strongly condemned the behaviour displayed by the state administration towards Imran Reza Ansari.
“We express deep concern over this dangerous precedent being set by the administration. It started the humiliation of political leaders, and now they are moving on into the domain of humiliating religious leaders, said the PC spokesperson in a statement issued here.
He said that J&K is administered in a new hybrid model, in which some bureaucrats have donned the hats of politicians’ and these politico-bureaucrat rogue variant of the bureaucracy feel that it is their divine duty to humiliate the political class.
“We would like to remind those bureaucrats that they are mere tools in this operation humiliation. It is the central leadership that has imposed a selected group on the masses of J & K. And we are having to face the brunt. We challenge them to dare to do it in any other part of the country. This too will pass. But these hybrid entities will be held up in odium and contempt and will go down in history as molesters of the sacred institution of bureaucracy”, he added.
He further asserted that it certainly does not behove the head of the state administration, even if he is regrettably selected and not elected, to preside over and voluntarily facilitate the humiliation of a religious leader, who incidentally had been very cordially invited.
The situation escalated when Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta took issue with Ansari’s remarks regarding the Amarnath Yatra.
Kumar accused Ansari of “giving a sectarian angle” to the meeting, leading to a heated exchange and Ansari’s decision to leave.
The L-G administration is considering lifting the ban on Muharram processions in Kashmir’s Guru Bazar-Dal Gate route for the first time in over three decades. As per The Hindu’s sources, the administration has offered to allow the processions under certain conditions and may limit the number of mourners attending. However, there has been no formal order issued by the administration regarding the lifting of the ban.
