Srinagar, April 17: Separatist leader Masarat Alam's aazaadi (freedom) lasted just 40 days but that seems to have been long enough to help him emerge as the foremost contender to succeed Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani and undermine Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's "battle of ideas" policy.
Alam, the face of the 2010 summer agitation in which around 120 people are believed to have been killed, was arrested early today from his Srinagar home.
The chief minister not only gave in to mounting pressure from ally BJP to arrest Alam - after releasing him only last month - but also used force to prevent a separatist march to Tral in south Kashmir, marking a departure from the "soft separatist" policy Mufti has been pursuing since the mid-1990s.
The Mufti government's action in preventing the procession led by Hurriyat dove Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was no different from the measures used by the previous Omar Abdullah government, which were then fiercely opposed by the People's Democratic Party.
Tral is simmering with tension since April 13 when a youth was killed by the army, which claims he was a militant worker. Residents and the PDP claim he was innocent. Protests broke out in Srinagar after the procession was stopped, leading to clashes in which several people were hurt.
The state government put several top separatists, including Geelani and Alam, under house arrest last night to prevent them from leading the march. That was followed by Alam's arrest at 8.30am, which added fuel to the protests.
Mufti, who as Union home minister at the peak of militancy in 1990 is accused of unleashing a reign of terror in the Valley, returned to Kashmir in the mid-1990s with a new policy to reach out to separatists and militant families that paid him rich dividends in the 2002 and 2012 elections.
When he joined hands with the BJP to form the government last month, he continued pursuing his "soft separatist" agenda, embarrassing his ally.
Mufti calls it the "battle of ideas" policy, through which he seeks to give democratic space to dissenting voices. This includes releasing separatists and allowing them to organise rallies. He could do it with ease in his first tenure as chief minister in 2002 but three summer agitations from 2008 to 2010 created an army of pro- aazaadi protesters who could only be contained by using force.
A rally in Srinagar on Wednesday to welcome Geelani back from his Delhi sojourn was too hot for the BJP to ignore. Pakistani flags were raised and Alam raised slogans in favour of Pakistan and Lashkar founder Hafiz Sayeed.
Under pressure, Mufti initially booked Alam, Geelani and others on charges of criminal conspiracy, rioting, wrongful restraint, and endangering human life and arrested Alam two days later.
A PDP source agreed Alam's release had helped the party resurrect its image. "Many people didn't like our alliance with BJP but we made some bold moves which made many people believe Mufti sahib can deliver. We will certainly face lot of questions now," a source said.
For Alam, 44, it has been a win-win situation. Sources said the spotlight has bolstered his prospects to emerge as a "natural successor" to Geelani. "The more negative publicity he got in Indian media, the more acceptable he became," a source said, pointing out that Alam appeared "in more demand than Geelani" at Wednesday's rally.<>
But, he said, Alam has a handicap in that he does not subscribe to the Moulana Abu Ala Maududi-founded Jamat-e-Islami ideology. The Geelani-led Hurriyat is dominated by men who follow the Jamat ideology and might oppose a "non-Jamati" as their head. Alam is believed to be close to Salafi thought, which has its roots in Saudi Arabia unlike the Jamat that has its roots in the subcontinent.
