Srinagar, March 8: Visitors today swarmed the residence of Hurriyat hardliner Masarat Alam in Srinagar's old city, braving rain, snow and the storm of protests outside the Valley and much beyond.
Masarat, the face of the "Quit Kashmir" agitation in 2010, was released last night by the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led government.
The release has snowballed into a controversy with ally BJP publicly denouncing the move and rivals Congress and the National Conference stepping up pressure on the new coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Inside a packed room at Masarat's house, the pheran-clad separatist leader betrayed no sign of nervousness. Neither did the people who kept arriving throughout the day to greet him.
The 43-year-old hardliner, who was arrested after giving sleepless nights to security forces in October 2010, took care to exchange pleasantries and shake hands with every visitor.
Asked about the growing protests outside the Valley against his release, Masarat appeared unfazed. "I have spent my life in jails and it is not a big deal if I am arrested again," he told reporters at his residence.
The separatist leader, who is seen as the front-runner to succeed Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani, said he was set free by the judiciary.
"My PSA (detention under the Public Safety Act) has ended. I was slapped with the PSA six times and have been released after four and a half years.... It (the release) is a normal process," he said.
Sources said Masarat received calls from several other separatist leaders, including Geelani, who congratulated him.
The week-old Mufti government has stirred one controversy after another but the one that has triggered the loudest uproar yet is the release of Masarat, whose fiery speeches had galvanised people and transformed the 2010 agitation into the biggest protest Kashmir had seen in decades.
Alleged widespread violations by security forces, during which around 120 mostly pro- aazaadi activists lost their lives, kept the embers smouldering and the agitation had gone on for five months.
The BJP is finding its position precarious. State BJP chief Jugal Kishore Sharma said the state government had taken the decision to release the separatist leader without consulting his party.
"We don't know who did it and when. We have not given our consent to it (Masarat's release). Our common minimum programme is no secret (it has no mention that prisoners will be released)," Sharma told reporters in Jammu.
The state leadership of the BJP went into a huddle in Jammu, where several participants expressed strong resentment against the move.
BJP sources said the party would take this issue up with the PDP. "We want to discuss it at a cabinet meeting," a leader said.
Former chief minister Omar Abdullah has taken a tough stand against the release. "Alam was the chief architect of the 2010 protests. It's not a coincidence that the protests died out AFTER his hard-won detention. Either Alam has turned a new leaf & done a deal with Mufti Syed or he will go back organising trouble in the valley," Omar tweeted.
"Whichever way I look at it, Alam's detention saved lives AND allowed a smoother, safer pair of elections... so I have no regrets at all (for not releasing him during his tenure)."
