By: Minya Tufail, Asstt. Bureau Chief, J&K
BARAMULLA: In a bid to vow voters, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party offered legal assistance to Yasin Malik led JKLF & Jamaat-e-Islamia , which has been banned by centre for promoting secession of the militancy-hit state from the Union of India.
Senior PDP leader and former Deputy chief Minister of the state, Muzaffar Hussain Beigh while addressing the party workers in Baramulla said they are ready to provide legal support to both JeI and JKLF in the Supreme Court and the High Court, provided that trust us.
Last week, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti had criticised the central government’s decision to ban JKLF, which had kidnapped her sister Rubaiya Sayeed in 1989.
“Yasin Malik renounced violence as a way of resolving J&K issue a long time ago. He was treated as a stakeholder in a dialogue initiated by then PM (AtalBihari Vajpayee ji). What will a ban on his organisation achieve? Detrimental steps like these will only turn Kashmir (sic) into an open-air prison,” Mehbooba had tweeted on the day when the central government had banned JKLF.
Malik is at present lodged in Kot Balwal jail in Jammu, and is likely to face trial in the three-decade-old case of kidnapping of Rubaya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and gunning down of four IAF personnel in Srinagar.
The JKLF was founded by Pakistani national Amanullah Khan in mid-1970 at Birmingham in the United Kingdom and came into prominence in 1971 when its member hijacked an Indian Airlines plane flying from Srinagar to Jammu.
The organisation was also involved in the kidnapping and killing of Ravindra Mhatre, an Indian diplomat posted the UK, in 1984. A week later, India executed Maqbool Bhat, a JKLF activist, who had been sentenced to death.
This is the second organisation in Jammu and Kashmir which has been banned this month. In February this year, the central government had also banned Jamat-e-Islami for a period of five years.
Both the organisations were banned after being categorised as “an unlawful association under Section 3(1) of the Unlawful Prevention Act 1967”, by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
After the ban, the J&K govt has launched a crackdown against ‘separatist’ elements in the valley in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack.Ironically, neither JeI nor JKLF came to fore to accept or deny the offer made by PDP patron.
