Gunmen spill blood in Kukka Parray’s hometown

Third killing of NC workers in Speaker’s segment since 2009

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Feb 18: Unidentified gunmen tonight killed an activist of the ruling National Conference (NC) at Hajjan---hometown of once the dreaded Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon supremo Kukka Parray---in the Legislative Assembly Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone’s constituency in North Kashmir. This is the third assassination of an NC worker at Hajjan since Omar Abdullah took over as head of the coalition government in Jammu & Kashmir in January 2009.

Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sumbal, Tahir Geelani, told Early Times that 50-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar S/o Ghulam Mohammad Dar R/o Dangar Mohalla, Hajjan, was targeted by an unidentified gunman at the main market in Hajjan at 8.00 p.m when he was returning to his home. Three pistol shots were pumped into Dar’s body that fell in a pool of blood. He was quickly evacuated to the local Public Health Centre but he failed to recover. According to doctors, he was dead when delivered at the PHC for treatment.

Dy SP Geelani said that Police had registered a murder case and the assassins were being searched with the help of eyewitnesses and circumstantial evidences. He said that number of the gunmen, who struck in the darkness, could not be ascertained immediately.

After NC’s Block President, Mohammad Maqbool Parra of Vijpara, in 2009 and another activist, namely Sonaullah War in 2010, Dar is the third member of the ruling party who fell to bullets of unidentified killers since January 2009. Residents said that he was a lower middle class farmer who would occasionally buy and sell cattle. They said that he had been regularly participating in the NC rallies and functions. His wife had unsuccessfully contested municipal election of February 2005 on NC’s ticket but she was among a number of candidates defeated by stronger rivals from the party of Imtiyaz Ahmed Parray. Parray swept the polls and was elected Chairman of Municipal Committee Hajjan.

NC’s MLA of Sumbal Sonawari and Speaker in Legislative Assembly, Mohammad Akbar Lone, condemned the political assassination. “How long would we continue blood-letting under one or the other label in Kashmir?” Lone asked the assassins. He said that Dar’s killing, that according to him was a loss to his party but would not terrorise the mainstream workers, deserved unqualified condemnation from one and all in the state. He expressed him condolences and sympathies to the bereaved family and asserted that the killers would be tracked and brought to justice.

Residents, as well as officials, seemed to be confused with regard to identification of the killers and their motive, for strong reasons. Over the last 21 years, Hajjan township, in Bandipore district, has been a bloody battle-ground between the Pakistan-sponsored militants and the Army-sponsored counter-insurgents. Over 150 civilians, militants, counter-insurgents and security forces personnel have died in scores of incidents of violence in Hajjan.

Once a stronghold of pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen, Hajjan became the capital of counter-insurgency in Kashmirwhen folk dancer-turned-militant, Mohammad Yousuf Parray alias Jamsheed Sheerazi alias Kukka Parray, shifted his loyalty to India and floated the dreaded Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon in 1995. In answer to hundreds of killings by Hizbul Mujahideen, Parray and his Army-supported guerrillas decimated all pro-Pakistan sections with the killing of hundreds of cadres of both Hizbul Mujahideen as well as its political arm, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Parray claimed the credit of “restoration of normality” and making the first Parliamentary and Assembly elections possible in the Valley in 1996, after seven long years of armed secessionism. In the dubiously declared results, Parray was installed as an elected Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) and he represented Sonawari segment for full term of six years.

Parray lost to NC’s Mohammad Akbar Lone in 2002. He was finally eliminated by pro-Pakistan militants in a dare-devil attack on his Gypsy in close vicinity of his fortified house in September 2003. Thereafter, gunmen of all hues have shown their presence in Hajjan and, notwithstanding conflicting ideologies, most of them have been united against the NC.

After killing of two young women in Sopore, allegedly by separatist militants, followed by killing of a youth by troops in Handwara, unsuccessful attempt of alleged counter-insurgents on a family in Kreeri and killing of three members of a family in a blast at Maloora (Shalteng), this is the 5^th consecutive incident that has rocked otherwise calm Valley of Kashmir in the last four weeks.

Meanwhile, reports from Baramulla said that five civilians and two Policemen sustained injuries in ding dong clashes as small groups of youth resorted to stone pelting on Police and CRPF after the Friday prayers at the district headquarters. One of the injured with serious injuries was rushed to a Srinagar hospital.

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