[Reader-list] "If (the government) allows protests, I can vouch that nobody will throw stones."

[Aditya Raj Baul]

Allow protests, no one will throw stones: most wanted separatist


By Muzamil Jaleel
Posted: Sun Aug 29 2010, 04:09 hrs
Srinagar:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/allow-protests-no-one-will-throw-stones-most-wanted-separatist/673919/0

For over two months now, as stone-pelting crowds have hit the streets
and grounded the Kashmir Valley, this 39-year-old man has been in
hiding — and furiously at work. He is Masrat Alam, the most wanted
separatist today, whose shadow lurks behind each protest via his angry
“solidarity videos” and carefully crafted “protest calendars”. There’s
a Rs 5-lakh police reward for any leads on where he may be.

After much persuasion, Alam agrees to meet The Sunday Express at a
location that cannot be identified. An hour-long journey by car, auto
rickshaw and then on foot, this reporter is escorted deep inside a
congested neighbourhood. Only then does it get clearer why police find
it hard to trace Alam. He doesn’t use phones — landline or cell — and
none of his men do either.

“We know their (police and security agencies) tactics too well,” Alam
smiles. “We are careful”.

Being careful also means having a formidable network of young men and
boys to ferry messages across the city and keep a round-the-clock tab
on who comes to meet him and why.

That’s why almost a mile from his hideout, our auto-rickshaw is
stopped in a narrow lane. A group of boys sitting on the pavement
point to another young man, dressed in white, flashy slippers, who
leads us down a corridor, dark and silent, up a narrow flight of
stairs to a tiny room where Alam sits.

“We don’t throw stones for fun,” he says. “Throwing stones is not our
hobby. The stone is a reaction. We want peaceful protests. We don’t
want our children to lose their lives. The problem is they (the
security forces) don’t let people protest. They impose curfew and
restrictions. They open fire straight at people. Then it becomes
difficult to control passions and people react by throwing stones.”

So how can there be a let-up in this violent cycle?

You can’t stop these protests, says Alam, then quickly adds: “If (the
government) allows protests, I can vouch for the fact that nobody will
throw stones. But they want to crush us, rather than acknowledging
that we have a genuine demand, their response is force and force
alone. I am underground because they want to put me behind bars.”

A militant commander who has turned into a firebrand separatist, Alam
walked out of prison on bail on June 8, barely three days before the
killing of 17-year-old student Tufail Ahmad Matoo in police firing
which triggered the current unrest across the Valley.

He had served 21 months in custody under the Public Safety Act — the
law he’s been booked under six times.

Considered an “excellent organiser”, Alam is chairman of Kashmir’s
Muslim League, a separatist group that looks at the Kashmir issue as
an “unfinished agenda of partition”. “Our agenda does not cross the
borders of Jammu and Kashmir. Our aim is azadi, complete liberation
from India,” says Alam. “Let people decide what they want. Our demand
is right of self-determination. Syed Ali Shah Geelani is my leader and
my inspiration.”

Though Alam rebuts that he wants to be a successor to Geelani and his
hardline legacy, it is clear that he is among the main contenders for
leadership after Geelani.

Asked about his ideology and politics regarding the Kashmir conflict
especially as he is viewed as an extreme hardliner within the
separatist camp, Alam declines to comment, preferring to speak in more
general terms.

“To have a beard and pray is a matter of faith for me. To have a beard
does not mean we are intolerant¿ it doesn’t mean that we will not
allow anyone else to live here. They (the government) have no answer
to our genuine cause so they try to demonize us,” he says. He raises
the issue of minorities.”We are Muslims and it is our responsibility
to provide all protection to the minority community even while we
ourselves feel insecure living here.”

As “evidence”, he underlines the fact that this year’s Amarnath Yatra,
which ended last week, reported no incidents. “The government always
portrayed a successful yatra as proof for the so-called return of
peace in Kashmir. This year, they (the government) did everything to
provoke people. Sixty four of our young men, most of them students and
children, were killed. The Hazratbal shrine was desecrated but people
didn’t fall prey to their (government’s) machinations. There has not
been a single incident when protesters attacked any yatri while they
were here,” he says.

“Isn’t this a clear enough message that we are fighting for our rights
and this struggle is not against people of any other religion but the
state that has been crushing our voice with force and killings? The
problem of Jammu & Kashmir is not that the people are protesting. It
is the state that doesn’t want to see the truth. They (the government)
think that once the people stop protesting, the problem will go. It
won’t. It hasn’t all these years.”

Why have his protest calendars shut down schools and businesses?

“What was 17-year-old Tufail Matoo doing when he was killed? He was
returning from tuition. How many students are among the 64 of our
young men who were killed? They (the government) are always looking
for an alibi to discredit the protests,” he says. “We will never want
the education of our children to be hampered. But look at the
situation. Whether there is a strike call or not, the government
imposes curfew to stop the protests. If they (the government) allow
people to protest peacefully, everything will be fine. They won’t
because they don’t want the people to raise their voice against
injustice.”

Alam’s fiery speeches, burned on to CDs, are a throwback to the
well-worn hardline routine but freshly packaged as a direct message to
the security forces, bypassing the government.

“You thought your violence would kill our dreams for freedom? They
have not. You thought our spirit would break; we would turn against
each other? We will not.”

What’s his message to the central government?

“New Delhi should stop closing its ears. This is a resistance
movement. This is a people’s movement and it has gone beyond the
organisational set up of any group,” says Alam. “If I am not there
tomorrow, the resistance will continue because its source of strength
are people.” A car honks outside, Alam peers through a little window.
There is a knock at the door. “It’s getting late,” a young man says.
“We need to leave”.