The elimination of terrorist Manan Wani has brought to the fore the real faces of many political leaders in the state with ousted Chief Minster Mehbooba Mufti describing it as an “entirely our loss”. While independent legislator Engineer Rashid claimed that by killing Wani, New Delhi has “lost to his arguments on separatism”, a few political parties chose to pay “tributes” to the slain terrorist and went to the extent of even describing him as a “budding intellectual”.
Meanwhile, the security agencies are taking all possible measures in North Kashmir so that Wani’s killing does not become the focal point for the local youth to join terrorist ranks. Police has filed an FIR against a local newspaper and its portal for sharing an article on the terrorist who was killed along with another in an encounter with the security forces at Handwara in North Kashmir.
Right at the beginning of the encounter itself, the agencies decided to close down all the educational institutions, especially the universities in Kashmir so that students could not go for rallies in favour of Manan Wani. “We have tried to contain the mischief mongers from spreading lies and also the misinformation in North Kashmir post-Manan Wani killing,” a senior police officer operating in North Kashmir told The Sunday Guardian.
In the recent past, Mehbooba’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference (NC) have tried to compete with Pro-Pakistan outfit Hurriyat Conference in paying tributes to the young terrorists who were slain in different gunfights with the security forces.
After Wani was killed, Mehbooba wrote on Twitter: “Today a PhD scholar chose death over life and was killed in an encounter. His death is entirely our loss as we are losing young educated boys every day.” In the past too, she had pitched for dialogue with Hurriyat and even Pakistan arguing that it was the “only solution to save Kashmir from present bloodshed”.
Rashid ridiculed Governor Satya Pal Malik for giving “confusing and contradictory” statements on how to handle terrorism. He claimed that on one hand, Malik claims that he was to eliminate terrorism and not terrorists, but on the other hand, he is killing even the most educated terrorists on ground. He claimed that New Delhi responded to Wani’s “thought-provoking” write-ups with bullets and thus “surrendered” to his arguments.