Senior separatist leader Masarat Aalam was re-arrested immediately after his release from Jammu jail on December 29. Earlier on December 27, the state High Court had quashed his detention. It was for the 32nd time that his detention under the Public Safety Act was quashed. And he is again back to jail. Why?
The government believes that his release triggers unrest and thus it is ideal to keep him behind the bars. Police and security agencies claim that he was the “driving force” behind the previous spells of unrest in the Valley. But this argument holds little weight because Aalam was actually serving imprisonment during the massive uprising of 2016. This ongoing agitation, which yet to get over, reportedly pushed Kashmir to its worst-ever humanitarian crisis.
So blaming Aalam alone for the unrest doesn’t make much logic. Above all, how can government overrule court orders? If the law of land wants him to be a free man, how can the Police supersede the ruling and why?
In Aalam’s detention there seems to be more than what meets the eye. While the government has its own explanation to detain him, professional rivalry within the separatist camps cannot be ruled out.
As per a top police official, Aalam, who heads Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League, a constituent of Geelani’s Hurriyat-G, was just another “henchman” of senior separatist Syed Ali Geelani till 2008. Police said that it was during the Amarnath land row that Aalam started gaining political mileage when he confronted other senior separatist leaders. “By 2010 he emerged so strong that normalcy could be restored only when he was caught after four months of being chased,” the official told Inuth.
“By 2010 he emerged so strong that normalcy could be restored only when he was caught after four months of the chase,” the official told InUth. In 2015, Aalam only looked taller. He was seen at a rally hosted by Geelani on April 15 last year. Though Aalam initially avoided addressing the crowds, who had assembled outside Geelani’s residence, he came on the stage on public demand. The supporters then started shouting “Aalam Aalam Masarat Aalam.”
However, by evening a controversy erupted as Pakistani flags were waved at the rally. While Masarat Aalam was arrested, Geelani has been under house arrest since. For almost three decades since militancy erupted in J&K, the government has booked Aalam in 49 cases and 32 times under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Born in 1971 at Zaindar Mohalla in Srinagar, he was brought up in a mixed neighborhood of Muslims and Pandits. Interestingly, Masarat did his schooling from Tyndale Biscoe, a leading missionary school in the Valley.
