Maqbool bhat biography of martin
Maqbool Bhat
Kashmiri separatist leader
Maqbool Bhat (–)[2] was a Kashmiri separatist leader, who went to Pakistan and founded the National Liberation Front (NLF), which was a precursor to the present day Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). He is called the "father of the Nation of Kashmir" Baba-e-Qaum by the locals.[3][a] Bhat carried out multiple attacks in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
He was arrested and sentenced to a double death sentence. He was hanged on 11 February in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Early life
Muhammad Maqbool Bhat was born on 18 February in the Trehgam village of the Kupwara district in the Kashmir Valley of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu in British India (now Jammu and Kashmir, India) into a Kashmiri Muslim family.
His father was called Ghulam Qadir Bhat. His mother died when Maqbool was 11 years old, and his father remarried.[5]
After studying locally, Bhat studied at the St. Joseph's School and College in Baramulla, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Political Science around [5]
Political career
The feudal system under the princely state and the politics of Sheikh Abdullah after independence shaped Bhat's political views.
During the college days, he was involved with the student activities of the Plebiscite Front (founded by Mirza Afzal Beg when Sheikh Abdullah was in prison for canvassing for independence). In December , Sheikh Abdullah was released, leading to agitations. He was rearrested in April The student activists of the Plebiscite Front were also targeted at this time, causing Maqbool Bhat to leave for Pakistan in August [6]
Bhat joined the Peshawar University, studying for an MA Urdu Literature in Peshawar, Pakistan He worked for some time as a journalist for the local newspaper Anjaam.[6] In , Bhat contested in the 'Basic Democracy' elections introduced by President Ayub Khan's military regime, and won the Kashmiri diaspora seat from Peshawar.[6] The elected government of K.
H. Khurshid lasted till , when Pakistan forced its resignation.
In April , the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front was formed in Muzaffarabad at the initiative of Abdul Khaliq Ansari, its president, and Amanullah Khan, its general secretary. Maqbool Bhat was appointed as the publicity secretary, owing to his journalistic background.[6][7][8] Journalist Arif Jamal states that, the participants drove to an unguarded location of the Kashmir Line of Control at Suchetgarh and, bringing back soil from the Indian-held Kashmir, took an oath that they would work exclusively for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir.[9]
Amanullah Khan and Maqbool Bhat also wanted to set up an armed wing for the Plebiscite Front, but the proposal did not get the majority support in the Plebiscite Front.
Undeterred, they established an underground group called National Liberation Front (NLF), obtaining some support for it in August The group was fashioned after the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale. Major Amanullah, a former soldier in the Azad Kashmir forces, was in charge of the armed wing while Amanullah Khan and Mir Abdul Qayoom took charge of the political and financial wings.
Maqbool Bhat was made responsible for the overall coordination. All the members swore in blood that they would be ready to sacrifice their lives for the objective of the NLF, viz., to create conditions in Jammu and Kashmir that enable its people to demand self-determination. The organisation was successful in recruiting members from Azad Kashmir, and obtained backing from the bureaucracy of the state.[7][10][11]
Militancy
First reentry
For ten months, The NLF recruited and trained a cadre of militants in the use of explosives and small arms.
On 10 June , two groups of NLF crossed into Jammu and Kashmir. The first group consisting of Maqbool Bhat, a student from Gilgit called Tahir Aurangzeb, an immigrant from Jammu called Mir Ahmad,[b] and a retired subedar called Kala Khan, went around the cities to find recruit and set up secret cells.[6] The second group, under Major Amanullah, trained the recruit in sabotage activities in the forests of Kupwara.
However, in September , Bhat's group was compromised near Srinagar. The group kidnapped a CID police inspector called Amar Chand as a hostage and, when he tried to escape, shot and killed him. The police mounted a search and zeroed in on them, leading to an exchange of fire in the Kunial village near Handwara. A member of Bhat's group, Kala Khan, was killed.
Bhat and Mir Ahmad were captured and tried for sabotage and murder, receiving death sentences from a Srinagar court in September [c] Major Amanullah's wing waiting to receive the volunteers at the Line of Control retreated, but it was arrested by the Pakistan Army.[6][12][11]
Maqbool Bhat's arrest brought the group's activities into the open, and sharply divided the Plebiscite Front.
Nevertheless, they declared it an unconstitutional body and "banned" it. Meanwhile, Maqbool Bhat and Mir Ahmad escaped from the Indian prison in December , along with another inmate Ghulam Yasin, tunneling their way out of the prison complex. They returned to Azad Kashmir in January , creating a sensation in the militant circles.
Their standing increased within the community, forcing the Plebiscite Front to abandon its opposition. However, the NLF's failed operations in Jammu and Kashmir put at risk all its sympathisers in the state, many of whom were arrested.[15][16]
Their escape from an Indian prison was viewed with suspicion by Pakistan.
Bhat and his colleagues were detained and brutally interrogated for several months.[17] Long after their release, Bhat was still suspected of being a double agent. Pakistan extended little support to the other Indian youth that crossed over into Azad Kashmir for arms and training. Praveen Swami suggests that, as Pakistan was waging a covert war through its own network in Jammu and Kashmir, it did not want those official operations jeopardised by the amateur operators of the NLF.[18]
Ganga hijacking
Hashim Qureshi, a Srinagar resident who went to Peshawar on family business in , met Maqbool Bhat and got inducted into the NLF.
He was given an ideological education and lessons in guerrilla tactics in Rawalpindi. In order to draw the world's attention to the Kashmiri independence movement, the group planned an airline hijacking fashioned after the Dawson's Field hijackings by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hashim Qureshi, along with his cousin Ashraf Qureshi, was ordered to execute one.
A former Pakistani air force pilot Jamshed Manto trained him for the task. However, Qureshi was arrested by the Indian Border Security Force when he tried to reenter into Jammu & Kashmir, India via LoC with arms and equipment. He negotiated his way out by claiming to help find other conspirators that were allegedly in the Indian territory, sought an appointment in the Border Security Force to provide such help.
Maqbool Bhat sent Qureshi replacement equipment for the hijacking, but it fell into the hands of a double agent, who then turned it over to the Indian authorities. Undeterred, the Qureshis made look-alike explosives out of wood and hijacked an Indian Airlines plane called Ganga on 30 January [19][20]
The hijackers landed the plane at Lahore and demanded the release of 36 NLF prisoners lodged in Indian jails.
However, they succumbed to pressure from the airport authorities and ended up releasing all the passengers and the crew. Years later, Ashraf Qureshi admitted that they were naive and didn't realise that "the passengers were more important than the actual plane." Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto showed up at the airport and paid a handsome tribute to the hijackers.
Indian Government then refused to carry out the demands.
Maqbool bhat biography of martin luther He added that he did not think it necessary to obtain a permit for moving around in his own country. Authority control databases. It appears from the writings of such. This is said to have been a deal made by Zulfikar Bhutto , by now the President of Pakistan, who declared that he would convict one hijacker but release the other.The plane lay on the tarmac for eighty hours, during which the Pakistani security personnel thoroughly searched the air plane and removed papers and postal bags they found in it. Eventually, upon the advice of the authorities, Hashim Qureshi burnt the plane down.[19][21]
For some time, the Qureshis were lauded as heroes.
After India reacted by banning overflight of Pakistani planes over India, the Pakistani authorities claimed that the hijack was staged by India, and arrested the hijackers and all their collaborators. A one-man investigation committee headed by Justice Noorul Arifeen declared the hijacking to be an Indian conspiracy, citing Qureshi's appointment in the Border Security Force.
Maqbool bhat biography of martin tn: Since his death, the JKLF has demanded that the mortal remains of the party's founder, which were buried inside the Tihar Jail, be handed over. It seems that during this period several rounds of discussion took place between the Plebiscite Fronts across the divided Kashmir and UK. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. For some time, the Qureshis were lauded as heroes.
In addition to the hijackers, Maqbool Bhat and other NLF fighters were arrested. Seven people were eventually brought to trial (the rest being held without charges). The High Court acquitted them of treason charges. Hashim Qureshi alone was sentenced to seven years in prison. Ironically, Ashraf Qureshi was released even though he was an equal participant in the hijacking.
This is said to have been a deal made by Zulfikar Bhutto , by now the President of Pakistan, who declared that he would convict one hijacker but release the other.[19][22]
Amanullah Khan was also imprisoned for 15 months in a Gilgit prison during , accused of being an Indian agent.
He was released after protests broke out in Gilgit. Thirteen of his colleagues were sentenced to 14 years in prison, but released after a year.[23] According to Hashim Qureshi, activists of the Plebiscite Front and NLF were arrested in Pakistan after the Ganga hijacking.[8] Abdul Khaliq Ansari, who was arrested and tortured, testified in the High Court that the Ganga hijacking had emboldened the people to question the corrupt practices of the Azad Kashmir leaders and, in reaction, the government arrested them and forced them to confess to being Indian agents.[17]
Second reentry
Further attempts by the NLF to infiltrate into Jammu & Kashmir, India also met with failure.
The organisation did not have enough funds and infrastructure, or support from other sources, to make an impact inside India.[18]
In May , Maqbool Bhat reentered Jammu & Kashmir again. He was encouraged by the student protests against the Indira-Sheikh accord, by which Sheikh Abdullah surrendered his demand and joined Indian system.
Bhat attempted to rob a bank in Kupwara. A bank employee was killed in the course of the robbery. Bhat was rearrested and received a second death sentence.[24]
JKLF
Bhat's arrest effectively broke the back of the NLF in Azad Kashmir. Amanullah Khan moved to England, where he received the enthusiastic support of the British Mirpuri community.
The UK chapter of the Plebiscite Front was converted into the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in May and formed an armed wing called the `National Liberation Army'. Amanullah Khan took charge as the General Secretary of JKLF the following February.[25]
Several attempts were made by different Kashmiri groups for the release of Maqbool Bhat, including the hijacking of an Indian plane by Abdul Hameed Diwani in and an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Delhi conference hall of Non Alignment Movement in [citation needed] In the first week of February , the ‘National Liberation Army’ of JKLF kidnapped an Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre from the Indian consulate in Birmingham.
They demanded the release of Maqbool Bhat and a sum of money from the Indian government but killed him just two days after abduction.
Death
Within a week of the diplomat's killing, Bhat's petition for clemency was rejected. He was executed in the Tihar Jail in New Delhi on 11 February , amidst heavy security.
Bhat was described as calm and composed, who did not "utter any word as he was being taken to the gallows".[27] His body was buried within the Tihar Jail premises against his wishes. High-ranking officials in the government said that the hanging was meant to signal a harder line against political violence.[27]
Sporadic incidents of protest against Bhat's execution were reported in the newspapers, which were described as "tremors of tension".
In Trehgam, no shops opened for four consecutive days. In old Srinagar, streets were deserted even though there was no call for any bandh. The police had already arrested around 1, opposition members in the preceding days in order to preempt protests.[27]
Abdul Ghani Lone, then a member of the legislative assembly, described the hanging as "judicial murder".
Bhat's lawyers called it a "political and hasty decision". They believed it was a violation of Bhat's constitutional rights to hang him in haste.[27]
Legacy
Five years after Bhat’s hanging, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) launched a militant movement for the separation of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir from India.
Since his death, the JKLF has demanded that the mortal remains of the party's founder, which were buried inside the Tihar Jail, be handed over.
Maqbool bhat biography of martin lewis Free Press Kashmir. At Peshawar University, he met such people as Ahmed Fraaz, one of the big legends of romantic and radical or commonly called progressive Urdu poetry. He said that he did not think it necessary to obtain a. Kashmiris, and he continues to be a major source of inspiration for the Kahmiri freedom fighters.Separatist leaders also call for shutdown each year, which is observed in the Valley to mark his anniversary of death.[30] JKLF announced a ceasefire in [31]
On 4 November , JKLF militants allegedly shot dead judge Neelkanth Ganjoo, who had presided over the Amar Chand murder trial, and declared sentence of death on Maqbool Bhat.[32]
See also
Notes
- ^The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front was founded in Birmingham, UK in , where Maqbool Bhat was clearly not present.
But it was an ideological successor to the National Liberation Front and, so, sometimes identified with it. The names are ambiguous. The NLF was also referred to as "Kashmir National Liberation Front" (Snedden, Kashmir: The Unwritten History , p.&#;) and the JKLF was often called "Kashmir Liberation Front".[4] In any case, Maqbool Bhat is often regarded as a co-founder of the JKLF.
- ^The name also appears as "Amir Ahmad" in some places.
- ^Gh.
Rasool Bhat states that Kala Khan received a life sentence in the trial. But other sources state that he was killed during the shoot out.
References
- ^"The long, deadly trek to Sunjuwan".Maqbool bhat biography of martin Both comments and pings are currently closed. He was sentenced to death for murder by the Delhi High. Download as PDF Printable version. However, again what Amanullah Khan tells us, the pair proposed that PF should have an armed struggle wing as well like several other struggles.
The Hindu. 14 February Retrieved 23 February
- ^Handoo, Bilal (11 February ). "What fuelled Kashmir's Maqbool Butt". Free Press Kashmir.
- ^Mushtaq, Sheikh (11 February ). "Kashmir seeks return of hanged separatist leader's remains".Maqbool bhat biography of martin lawrence You live in their hearts and minds. Their standing increased within the community, forcing the Plebiscite Front to abandon its opposition. All Right Reserved. This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, , pm and is filed under Burning Kashmir.
Reuters. Archived from the original on 11 October
- ^ Zafar Meraj, Inderjit Badhwar, Discontent brewing in Kashmir for two years again finds expression in violence, India Today, 30 April
- ^ abBhat, Social Background and Political Ideology (), Sec. 1.
- ^ abcdefBhat, Social Background and Political Ideology (), Sec.
2.
- ^ ab Shams Rehman, Remembering Amanullah Khan[usurped], The Kashmir Walla, 7 May
- ^ abAbdul Khaliq Ansari passes away, Greater Kashmir, 17 June
- ^Jamal, Shadow War , pp.&#;87–
- ^Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;,
- ^ abJamal, Shadow War , pp.&#;88–
- ^Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;–
- ^Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;–
- ^Jamal, Shadow War , pp.&#;90–
- ^ abStatement of Advocate Abdul Khaliq Ansari before ‘Azad Kashmir" High Court in , Jammu Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party, 8 June
- ^ abSwami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;–
- ^ abcSwami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;–
- ^Jamal, Shadow War , p.&#;
- ^Jamal, Shadow War , p.&#;
- ^Jamal, Shadow War , p.&#;
- ^In Amanullah Khan's death Kashmiri separatism lost its champion, Catch News, 27 April
- ^Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , p.&#;
- ^Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad , pp.&#;–
- ^ abcd Mark Fineman, Militant Leader is Executed in India, Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 February ProQuest&#;
- ^"Shutdown on JKLF founder's death anniversary".
Zee News. 11 February Retrieved 9 February
- ^"JKLF wants all cases against its cadres withdrawn". The Times Of India. 16 January Archived from the original on 4 October
- ^"Media on a Fai ride". Asian Age.
Bibliography
- Bhat, Gh.
Rasool (February ), "Social Background and Political Ideology of Maqbool Bhat (18th February – 11th February )", Research Directions, 2 (8), CiteSeerX&#;, ISSN&#;
- Jamal, Arif (), Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir, Melville House, ISBN&#;
- Faheem, Farrukh (27 April ), "Kashmir: Dead Men Do Tell Tales", Economic and Political Weekly, 48 (17): 18–21, JSTOR&#;
- Schofield, Victoria () [First published in ], Kashmir in Conflict, London and New York: I.
B. Taurus & Co, ISBN&#;
- Snedden, Christopher () [first published as The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir, ], Kashmir: The Unwritten History, HarperCollins India, ISBN&#;
- Staniland, Paul (), Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, Cornell University Press, pp.&#;68–, ISBN&#;
- Swami, Praveen (), India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The covert war in Kashmir, , Asian Security Studies, Routledge, ISBN&#;