Defiant youths worry for separatists

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 29

As the anger on street shows no hint of calming down and young protesters even defying the appeal for a break in shutdowns, the separatists in the region are coming under increased pressure to toughen up.

The separatist leadership, which has made attempts to unite in recent months, has tried to steer the near-spontaneous protests that were sparked off by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani on the evening of July 8 and have continued across the Kashmir valley since then.

Sources in the separatist groups said they were under pressure from the young protesters who want the demonstrations to continue without “adopting a lenient approach.”

The sources said groups of young men had visited the residences of several separatists and warned them not to take steps which will “ease the momentum” of the ongoing unrest.

“There have always been some people who opposed traditional leadership but this time their number is more and they are more vocal,” a senior separatist leader, who is involved in charting protest calendars, said.

Another separatist leader described the new generation of protesters as “more defiant” and said there was a pressure on the separatists to continue the agitation. “People are coming to us and asking us to continue, they have apprehensions that it might be slowly called off,” he said, requesting not to be named.

“We should not have given protest calendars because it then requires a proper closure, but there was pressure for it,” he said.

The three separatist groups — which include rival factions of Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and JKLF led by Yasin Malik – had called for only shutdowns for the first few days of unrest but marked an escalation from July 15 when they issued detailed protest calendars calling for shutdown, marches and blackouts.

The separatists faced the first public expression of revolt from protesters when they called for a relaxation in the shutdown on July 21 even as the state government imposed a curfew to scuttle the break in shutdown.

The more prominent backlash came on Tuesday this week, when the separatists had called for a second round of relaxation in the shutdowns. Hundreds of protesters blocked roads, clashed with the police and prevented the relaxation in shutdown.

The separatist appeal to protesters to remain peaceful has also made little impact on the situation and two police posts under attack from demonstrators on Friday in north Kashmir Sopore sub-district, where Geelani’s influence has come under challenge from militants.