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| India-Pakistan |
| Kashmir's Jamaat-e-Islami is beginning to undo its two decades-old hijacking by the jihadist agenda. |
| 2008-02-21 |
| BELOW the ice carpet in the Kashmir Valley, the first stirrings of the political life that will blossom this summer have begun. Last week, Sheikh Mohammad Hassan, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Jamaat-e-Islami, the political formation that gave birth to the Hizb ul-Mujahideen, announced that his organisation would not participate in secessionist campaigns calling for a boycott of the Assembly elections scheduled for later this year. Hassan’s language was startling. “Elections,” he said, “do not have any impact on the status of the Kashmir issue. If people cast their votes in the elections, it does not mean that they have given up their freedom struggle or accepted India’s domination of Jammu and Kashmir. I am at variance with leaders and organisations who over-emphasise the election boycott campaign.” Among these leaders is the Islamist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani, of whose hard line Tehrik-e-Hurriyat secessionist coalition the Jamaat is a part. Coming just days after the Pakistan-based United Jihad Council announced that it would not kill election participants — 69 activists were shot dead in 1996, and 99 in 2002 — the Jamaat declaration has been little reported, and even less understood. It could, however, prove critical to political life in the State. |
| Posted by:Fred |