Mirwaiz under fire from terrorists
The United Jehad Council has advised Mirwaiz to 'stop delivering sermons of cowardice', reports Arun Joshi.
Terrorists have struck back at All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq asking him, "to desist from delivering sermons of cowardice" and called his suggestion for farewell to arms as an antithesis of the ground realities in Kashmir.
He has come under fire from those believing that guns alone can deliver solution. The United Jehad Council has taken the charge to attack Mirwaiz, this time.
The Mirwaiz - or the chief priest of Kashmir - had hit terrorists where it hurt them the most, saying that their armed ways brought nothing but death and destruction and only added graveyards.
Official accounts say nearly 50,000 people died, while the death census by Kashmiri separatists, talks of at least 100,000 "martyrs".
United Jihad Council, an apex group of terrorist outfits based in Pakistan occupied Kashmir guiding the violent actions of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, has come out with a strongly worded statement against Mirwaiz and his thesis of Kashmir solution through dialogue.
The UJC which is headed by Syed Salaha-ud-Din, supreme commander of Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen, has charged the Mirwaiz with cowardice and asked him to enjoy the "comforts" of his home life rather than delivering "lessons of cowardice" to others.
Mirwaiz had declared in Pakistan on Friday that terrorism had yielded nothing but graveyards and Kashmir is not interested in losing "more of its loved ones." It was his way of telling terrorists that they should give up arms and join the negotiations table with India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir crisis.
Medecins Sans Frontiers, an international humanitarian aid organization in its survey: "Kashmir: Violence and Mental Health" had noted that the violence in Kashmir was giving rise to several disorders, psychological disorders, sexual abuse and so on. It has suggested: "A cessation of hostilities, with a reduction in fear and intimidation will result in an immediate improvement of the population's physical situation".
But the UJC’s hard-hitting statement, as published in Greater Kashmir and Kashmir Images, two English dailies of Jammu and Kashmir, has voiced shock over the statement of Mirwaiz.
"The statement of Mirwaiz may please some Western circles and Indian leaders, but it cannot change the ground realities," the UJC spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain, said.
He said that only a "strongly coordinated state-wide armed struggle, enjoying the patronage of sincere, robust and representative (political) leadership, could take the freedom movement to its logical end."
It has also taken a strong exception to the talk of irrelevance of the UN resolutions on Kashmir. "If there were no UN resolutions, there was no role for Pakistan," it pointed out.
Email Arun Joshi: a_joshi957@rediffmail.com
