Embattled Hurriyat

The bloc had never imagined that it would be snubbed by none other than the Valley’s most powerful militant commander Zakir Musa.

- Riyaz Wani

On May 12, the Val-ley’s top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Zakir Musa released a 5 minute video threatening Hurriyat leaders with beheading should they continue to insist on calling Kashmir’s Azadi movement a political rather than an Islamic struggle. His words were blunt: “I am warning these leaders. If they don’t stop calling Kashmir a political issue, then the first thing we will do is to hang them. We will stop fighting non-believers and hang them first”.

He continued: “If Hurriyat leaders have to do their politics, then they shouldn’t become thorns in our struggle to enforce shariah. Otherwise, we will first chop offtheir heads and hang them in Lal Chowk”. This was no small threat. It was first time since the start of the armed separatist struggle in 1989 that a top militant commander had openly taken on the Hurriyat leaders and threatened to kill them. And the provocation was their opposition to calling Kashmir movement “Islamist” or having anything to do with the ISIS or Al Qaeda.