The so-called moderate faction of separatist Hurriyat Conference alliance on Thursday decided to serve show cause notices to its former chairman Prof. Abdul Gani Butt and two second-rung leaders, Muhammad Azam Inquilabi and Naeem Ahmed Khan, who have been charged with showing indiscipline. Their membership in the amalgam is also likely to be placed under suspension till they reply to the notices being issued within ten days and the same are scrutinised.
Mr Butt, who is leader of Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, an important constituent of the amalgam, had earlier this month stirred up a real hornet’s nest when he said that the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir “are not practically applicable in present times.” While speaking at a rally in hometown Botangoo in presence of the Mirwaiz and other Hurriyat Conference leaders, Mr Butt had also asked for forging a political unity with mainstream regional political parties including ruling National Conference and opposition People Democratic Party “to move together with a common minimum political agenda and push it ahead.”
The statement sparked off tensions within the Hurriyat Conference and outside it a debate on whether Mr Butt’s suggestions were pragmatic in nature or a deviation from the agenda pursued by the amalgam faction. He was openly challenged by several other constituents and individuals in the amalgam and outside it both hailed and assailed. However, the internal strife in the Hurriyat faction only got murkier with the leaders choosing to wash their dirty linen in public and activists owing allegiance to the competitors going a step further by twice fighting it out physically in open.
A statement issued here after the present incumbent Mirwaiz Umar Farooq closeted with other members of the alliance’s high-power central executive here to discuss the internal strike and its fallout said the views expressed by Mr Butt at the Botango rally were his own as the Hurriyat standpoints on the issue he had raised are “clear and open to all.” It said that the amalgam faction will not tolerate any indiscipline and suitable action is being taken against Mr Butt and also against others facing similar charges.