Ahead of the central government’s Kashmir interlocutor’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir, the Enforcement Directorate has issued a notice to the separatist leader Muhammad Yasin Malik. Malik reacted sharply to the notice and alleged that the government is pressurizing them through the notices of the Enforcement Directorate and the NIA to talk to the interlocutor.
Addressing a press conference here, Malik said, he will not budge under such threats and will gladly prefer Tihar jail. He said the central government has adopted Gabbar Singh approach and is pointing “gun at our heads” assuming that this would force “us” to talk.
He said the government of India has nominated an interlocutor and India wants to make Kashmiris surrender through force and coercion before him. “The resistance is not a profession to us. We are in love with it and the RSS which had been collaborators with the British during the Indian Freedom movement cannot understand the spirit of the freedom fighter”, Malik said. “They should know we will not budge”, Malik said.
He alleged that the government has opened the doors of Tihar jail for Kashmiri separatists and was “deviously” using the NIA and the ED. “Now it may be my turn to go to Tihar jail. But such things will not deter me. I have been in Tihar long ago and after that to Jhodpur and Rajasthan jails”, Malik said.
“Does Indian state think that if we don’t meet their interlocutor they will send all of us to jail and jail will force us to submission,” he said.
“They think freedom fighter can surrender due to fear and harassment. If this would have been the case then no nation would have been able to get independence,” he said.
Malik said intimidations and “so-called notices and threats” will never work. He said India wants to use Gabbar Singh approach to take separatists but it was bound to fail.
He said in March 2001 a drama was enacted to arrest him as the government was too annoyed on the formation of a parallel independent election commission by the Hurriyat Conference. He said the Hurriyat Conference formed the parallel election commission after criticism by Indian intellectuals and others that the Hurriyat had no representative character. He said the parallel election commission headed by human rights activist Tapan Bose would have settled the issue of the “so-called representative character” forever. He said the move was not liked by the government and he was arrested under a “well-orchestrated drama” and was shifted to Jammu jail under POTA.
He said since then the case is pending before the POTA court in Jammu and the ED has issued the notice to him in the same case. Malik said the government of India and the state government were arresting sons, fathers, relatives, friends of separatist leaders and activists. Malik said when in 2001 he was arrested, that time Mehbooba Mufti and her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed gave the harshest statement against the government.
“If the central government had decided that to harass every Kashmiri and put everybody in jail will end resistance in Kashmir they are living in fool’s paradise”, he said.
He said last year protesters were killed and hundreds were blinded by the indiscriminate use of pellet guns. “When the government failed it decided to target the leadership and their friends and families”, he alleged.
“Syed Ali Geelani’s two sons have been summoned by the NIA and his family members are in Tihar jail. Family members of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have been questioned and my friends are also being questioned”, he said.
He said Jammu and Kashmir Police Chief recently stated that both police and militants are holding guns and families from either side should not be involved. “But the government of India has started targeting families”, he added.