Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR: Notwithstanding the senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s claim that none other than the “Indian secret agencies” were behind the burgeoning terrorism, Director General of Police K. Rajendra Kumar is going to claim that all the recent acts of harassment and bloodletting were the handiwork of Hizbul Mujahideen’s Sopore unit.
While touring the North Kashmir townships of Sopore, Baramulla, Handwara and Kupwara, DGP on Thursday told mediapersons that the Police had got “vital leads” on the identity and activities of the armed group that had spread a wave of terror with guerrilla attacks and civilian killings in Sopore area in the last two weeks. “Within the period of two days, Police will make the facts public before press. We have restored the communication system and arrested some saboteurs. If at any place, a mobile tower owner or any other outlet feels any threat, police will immediately provide security cover to that place or a person. We will ensure that there’s no telecommunication breakdown in Kashmir.”
In the last three weeks, unidentified guerrillas operating under the banner of “Lashkar-e-Islam” have asked the vendors—retailers as well as franchises— in Sopore and other North Kashmir towns to freeze all telecommunication signals and recharge of mobile telephones. They set the deadline of seven days and immediately thereafter unleashed a reign of terror on the defaulters. While as two persons associated with the mobile telephony were shot dead, at least five others sustained injuries in these attacks.
Subsequently, the unidentified gunmen shot dead a senior Jamaat-e-Islami and Tehreek-e-Hurriyat activist in Sopore township.
According to the highly placed sources in J&K Police Headquarters, DGP would hold a press conference on Saturday or Sunday and directly blame the local Hizbul Mujahideen cadres of Sopore for causing harassment to the mobile service vendors. He would claim that all the three civilians in Sopore area had been killed by Hizbul Mujahideen.
Sources revealed that DGP could name the Hizb militants like the dreaded Qayoom Najjar, Imtiyaz Kandoo, Naveed, Muz Maulvi, Meraj Halwai, Tariq of Handwara and two more from Palhalan and hold them responsible for the recent acts of terror. He would claim that the Jamaat activist Sheikh Altaf-ur-Rehman had been shot dead by a Sopore-based militant of Hizbul Mujhaideen Imtiyaz Kandoo.
However, Geelani has held the “Indian secret agencies” responsible for the chain of harassment and fatal attacks. On Wednesday, Geelani said in a statement that the Indian secret agencies were trying to create confusion among the separatists with sinister machinations in social media: “They are not hidden from us and if their poisonous thinking becomes the reason for any other killing, we will be left with no other option to expose them”.
In another statement on Thursday, Geelani said: “Whether it is the figures of the sacrifices or the matter of the election boycott, Sopore has set an example and it has become a role model for the freedom lovers. Sopore area has always been the matter of concern for the policymakers of India so, this time they have hatched a deep conspiracy against this region and they want to terrorise the people with the fake organizations and want to spread anarchy here”.
Geelani asserted that organisations like Taliban and ISIS did not exist in Sopore or any other part of Kashmir and alleged that the government agencies were circulating fake threat posters and harassing the mobile telephone and cable TV operators only to defame the Kashmiris’ “freedom struggle”.
