Election Fervor
The year 2014 proved to be very tough for the politicians contesting parliamentary elections from Kashmir. Sensing the same trounce in the assembly election the veterans have decided to quit!
The biggies of ruling coalition have decided not to contest the assembly elections slated for later this year. Dr Farooq Abdullah was the first to decide it and then Ghulam Nabi Azad, Prof Saif ud Din Soz and now BJP’s Prof Chaman Lal Gupta followed his footsteps.
In 2014 Dr Farooq was defeated for the first time in his political career in the Srinagar constituency.
Some of the experts in valley believe the decision has been taken amid the growing anti incumbency sentiments against the coalition of National Conference and Congress.
However these veterans have decided to carry out extensive campaigning for their parties. It is believed that Azad’s decision may have been prompted by his defeat in the recent Lok Sabha polls. So far, Azad has won two Lok Sabha elections in 1980 and 1985 from Washim in Maharashtra and one assembly election in 2006 from his home constituency of Bhaderwah that he contested as CM. For the rest of his career, he has been a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Soz, 77, has contested four times for Lok Sabha elections, to which he was elected for the first time in 1983, and one in Rajya Sabha, when the NC expelled him in 1999 for going against the party whip and voting for the fall of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 13-month old government. This brought him in favour with the Congress and since 2002 he has been in the upper house. Analysts say Azad is better placed to win than Soz if both decide to contest.
If reports are to be believed the Congress is expected to project Azad, 65, as its chief ministerial candidate if the party wins. Soz’s son, Salman Anees Soz, is set to get the Congress ticket from his home constituency of Baramulla.
On the other hand, Azad’s business tycoon son, Saddam Azad, is not interested in politics.
NC patron Farooq Abdullah has been a chief minister three times and the longest serving one after his father Sheikh Abdullah. He has served as a cabinet minister in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet and has been a member of Rajya Sabha and the LS.
Ikhwani terror
The era of Ikhwani’s was over but recently they were again in news after police registered a case against the son of deceased Ikhwani founder Kuka Parrey for assaulting a lady doctor on duty at Sub district hospital Hajin.
As per a local news agency, the victim lady doctor (name withheld) said on Tuesday night at around 11:30 PM when she was on night duty, a man entered into the hospital and directed her to accompany him to see his ailing mother. But when the said doctor refused to go out of the hospital, this man, who later identified himself as congress activist Imtiyaz Parrey, not only abused her but also slapped her and threatened her of dire consequences.
The doctor has alleged that Imtiyaz stooped so low that he slapped and pulled her hair. Soon after the doctor informed Station House Officer Hajin on phone but Parrey went to police station and complained against her.
Meanwhile, Imtiyaz Parrey has alleged that the said lady doctor refused to treat his mother. “She taunted me for being the son of the Ikhwani and said that she doesn’t treat Ikhwani’s.” But the lady doctor refuted these allegations.
A case with an FIR (83/2014) and a counter FIR (84/2014) has been registered in police station Sumbal.
However, the Chief Medical Officer Bandipora GM Dar said that no doctor can move out of hospital premises during duty hours.
Palhalan Mystery
Mystery again engulfed North Kashmir’s Palhallan area over the death of a local youth Mudasir Ahmad Sofi on Wednesday.
The state police claimed that they recovered the body of a militant from a house in Kreeri during a search operation. However in its press bulletin they claimed the body was of Sofi and he is the same person who snatched INSAS rifle in Kreeri area while injuring the police man with an axe. They say Sofi died while pressing the trigger of the same rifle and claims the weapon was recovered near Sofi’s body.
While contradicting the police claims, the owner of the house, Mohammad Ramzan Mir said that no one was in their house when the forces laid a cordon around it and other locals says that they didn’t hear any gun shots in the area.
Locals have alleged Sofi, an undergraduate student, was arrested and later killed in custody by government forces.
Sofi’s father Abdul Gani Sofi, a Hizbul Mujahideen militant, was killed by army in an encounter in 1994.
Shun GUNS
In an apparently cordial effort to reach out to the militants fighting for liberation of J&K from Indian rule, Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah on Wednesday advised militants to shun the path of violence and adopt peaceful means to register their protest.
Omar, who was addressing reporters on the sidelines of an inauguration function in Srinagar, said “militants should shun the path of violence and instead choose other ways to register their protest and to fight for their rights.”
Omar said the gun-culture has been ruining the state for the past 25 years and that the militants should find a different way to fight for their rights.
He added that people especially youth have understood the end result of the gun-culture and they are not getting inclined towards this culture now. “Gun-culture has brought only death and destruction and nothing else and those who join militant ranks should understand it will fetch them nothing expect ruin their careers,” he said.
Reacting strongly over Omar’s statement, Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani termed the statement of Omar Abdullah as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘meaningless.’ Geelani said that “on the directions of masters in New Delhi, Omar Abdullah has closed all the options and doors of the political struggle in Jammu & Kashmir and by banning the political activities in the state.”
“Government is itself encouraging the situation of political uncertainty and instability here,” Geelani said in a statement on Thursday.
He said that it is India which is “using gun for the resolution of Kashmir issue and have deployed 7.5 lakh army, one lakh police, 26 thousand VDC personnel and dozens of secret agencies in Kashmir to silence the just and genuine political voice of its people.”
Geelani also termed, “the propaganda that due to the boycott call of the Pro-Freedom leadership, BJP will come into power and they will unleash atrocities on the common people as meaningless.”
“Kashmiri people have gone through the extreme tyrannical regimes of National Conference and PDP but due to their local character, those atrocities were not noticed at the international level while as due to BJP coming into power this delusion will end and world will better understand the reality of the Kashmir dispute.” He also said that India is suppressing Kashmiris for its forced occupation and it is not the elected government of the local people but it is the military rule of India over Kashmir.
