By Shazia Yousuf
SRINAGAR
Masarat Alam, a senior Kashmiri independence advocate, had spent four and a half years in prison, without charge, when he was released by the Indian-held Kashmir's new government last Saturday.
The move caused a ruckus in Indian parliament, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, claiming the whole country was angered by the release.
Now back in his home in the old city of Srinagar, Indian-held Kashmir's capital, Alam said in an interview with The Anadolu Agency that the release came as a surprise.
“I was not expecting to be released. I wasn't thinking much about being released because even though the Indian Court had been releasing me, the state police, at the behest of the Government, kept immediately re-arresting me on the same charges again and again,” said Alam. "My release alone does not mean much as there are hundreds of political prisoners languishing in jails."
The 44-year-old General Secretary of the pro-independence Hurriyat Conference and Chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir Muslim League was one of the key figures in 2010 mass protests in Kashmir, during which more than 120 civilian protesters were killed in clashes with Indian armed forces trying to contain a groundswell of discontent.
Alam, one of the protest's main organizers, is believed to have coined popular slogans like "Go India, Go Back" and a high-intensity protest song and dance known as "Ragda." In fact, locally, the dance's name became the buzzword for the entire 2010 agitation.
The Indian police official who arrested him was quoted in a local newspaper on Tuesday saying that the then Chief Minister of the state, Omar Abdullah, asked him as to why he had arrested Alam rather than "bump him off."
Alam's release from the prison quickly snowballed into a major controversy and Modi has already twice spoken about the matter in parliament.
“Whatever is happening after the formation of the government in Jammu and Kashmir is being done without keeping the government of India or the Centre in the loop,” Modi said in parliament on Monday. “This is not the anger of a political party. This is the anger of the entire country, of a unified parliament. I share the nation's anger.”
The release came after state elections in Jammu & Kashmir that saw the Kashmir-based People's Democratic Party go into coalition with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party -- who had never before been in power in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Both have faced criticism for the alliance; the PDP from Kashmiris who believe promises to Hindus in other parts of the state aided the BJP; and the BJP from Indian media and opposition parties.
“My release is an attempt by the PDP to try to fool people again that they are sympathetic to the sentiment for independence in Kashmir, but I am sure that Kashmiri people will see through it," said Alam. "The PDP, which used many ploys to try and convince people that they were their representatives, are now trying hard to divert attention from their coalition with the Hindu right wing party and my release is part of that ploy to reach out to Kashmiri people, who, inshallah, will not fall within these traps.”
“As for me, I will do my work again with the Hurriyat and I am always ready to be arrested again,” said Alam, who has spent more than five of his six years as a married man in prison.
Alam was arrested by the police in 2010 under the Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law in the Indian-held Kashmir which gives the District Magistrate authority to take anyone in his district into custody for up to two years, without a trial, if he feels the person is a threat to the security of the state.
During the four-and-a-half year imprisonment, while the court repeatedly quashed the charges against Alam, police immediately re-arrested him after every release, again using the Public Safety Act, leading to a total of six consecutive arrests under the same law from 2010.
Alam, who joined the Kashmiri resistance in 1990, told AA that he was looking forward to meeting with his fellow activists to gain an feel for the situation on the ground and to start working on for "Independence from the Indian occupation."
“I feel that the resistance leadership must focus on things like improving communication with our own people, putting the Kashmir issue in perspective again internationally and raising it more vocally, and to strengthen Tehreek-e-Hurriyat as the party and [Syed Ali Shah] Geelani Sahib as the leader of the movement,” Alam said.
He also derided state elections held under the Indian constitution, saying they were held under a repressive Indian system and pointing towards the frequent arrests of thousands, including key resistance leaders, before every election.
“We are stopped from meeting people, from articulating our ideas, from addressing a gathering. What elections in such a environment can reflect the people's will?" said Alam. "Democracy is a war of ideas and if Indian occupation in Kashmir was a democracy, they would not need to put us behind bars and under house arrest.”
"They arrest all of us and then say that no one supports us. They can try to convince themselves of their own lies but they convince no one else," he said.
