Politicians preying on south Kashmir tragedy, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Politicians preying on south Kashmir tragedy

By Praveen Swami

Violence in Shopian fuelled by a bitter struggle for power

Islamist cleric claims Shopian deaths were state-sponsored murders

First wave of rioting in Shopian reportedly set off by NC workers

SHOPIAN: No one remembers, any longer, just who threw the first stone. But more than a fortnight after the mysterious death of two women in Shopian set off searing street violence across southern Kashmir and Srinagar, there is still no sign that the last one is about to be cast.

Fear of setting off renewed rioting led the Kashmir Division’s top bureaucrat, Masud Samoon, to turn back 2 km short of the affluent apple-industry hub on Saturday. Mobs have attempted to attack Justice Muzaffar Jan, who is holding a judicial enquiry into the deaths. And People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti was almost lynched during a recent visit.

Beneath the primal rage which is apparently driving the violence lie cold-blooded power struggles: a war for leadership of Kashmir’s Islamist movement; the struggle for space between Islamists and pro-India political parties; and, in turn, the battles of the National Conference, People’s Democratic Party and the Congress against each other.

Secessionist surge

An Islamist cleric almost unknown outside his home town appears to be winning the fight.

Maulana Tariq Ahmad has emerged as the principal voice of the protests in south Kashmir. Like other Islamists in Jammu and Kashmir, Maulana Ahmad claims the deaths in Shopian were state-sponsored murders: crimes intended to degrade and eventually destroy Islam in Kashmir.

Ahmad comes from an impeccable Islamist lineage. His father-in-law, Mohammad Shafi Ahrar, is among south Kashmir’s best-known Jamaat-e-Islami leaders. Mr. Ahrar’s father, Ghulam Ahmad Ahrar, was, along with schoolteacher Saaduddin Tarabali, a co-founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir.

Shopian’s Pir-caste families, who claim unbroken descent from Prophet Mohammad, played a key role in the formation and growth of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir. The organisation’s chroniclers trace its formation to a meeting held at Shopian’s Badami Bagh in 1942. Alarmed by the National Conference’s radical socialism, Shopian’s orchard-owning elite Pir families turned in ever-growing numbers to the Jamaat’s neo-fundamentalist message.

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