Preempting arrest, J&K separatists head to Delhi

Srinagar: The government had last month said that it won’t come in the way of the NIA if it decides to lay its hands on top Kashmiri separatist leaders as well in connection with the probe being conducted by it into the alleged terror funding in the Valley.

Home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi  had said in a television interview, “Funding of terrorists and stone-pelters has been impacted by the NIA raids on separatists and others in the Kashmir Valley. Their funds have been choked. This has led to improvement in the situation.”

He said that the Centre won’t interfere if the NIA wants to arrest the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist leaders involved in the alleged terror funding.

Is, therefore, the decision of key faces in Kashmir’s separatist politics Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik to visit Delhi at the weekend to ask the NIA to arrest them aimed at preempting their falling in an embarrassing situation in the event of the investigating agency actually going for it?

The leaders who are part of an alliance called “Joint Resistance Leade-rship” announced in Srinagar on Wednesday that they will fly to Delhi and will then drive to the NIA headquarters to ask it to arrest them.  

Asked if the move was in anticipation of their arrest by the NIA, the Mirwaiz told this newspaper, “It is not that.” He asserted, “First and foremost, I would like to say that the NIA has been outrageously intimidating people here. Leave the pro-freedom leadership and their relatives, friends and acquaintances aside. They are targeting everyone — traders, lawyers, journalists, intellectuals, writers, academia and civil society activists - with an aim to project our indigenous struggle as a movement sponsored from across the border where money is the motivation and the end.”

He said, “We couldn’t tolerate it anymore and decided to go down to Delhi to ask the NIA to arrest us”. He added, “Yet if there actual target is the leadership we are ready to go to jail. If they think that by incarcerating us they will be able to solve the Kashmir problem we are here to ask them open the doors of your jails for us. But they should also know that by using NIA they will not succeed in hoodwinking the international community or overawing us nor are we going to give up our struggle.”

Analysts say that while Geelani is already under house arrest, the Mirwaiz and Malik may either be taken into ‘preventive custody’ or placed under house arrest ahead of the ‘solidarity day’ for the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar being observed on Friday for which the JRL issued a call earlier this week. Their movement may be curtailed for a couple of more days and, in such possibility, they won’t be able to fly to Delhi on Saturday. They separatist leaders said that they have already booked their flight tickets.