Embarrassed and angered by Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik’s decision to share stage with Hafiz Saeed in Islamabad to mourn the hanging of Afzal Guru, the Indian government is weighing the option of revoking Yasin’s passport on grounds of national security.
The Indian authorities would question Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) as soon as he returns home to explain his hobnobbing with India’s most-wanted terror fugitive, almost giving Saeed legitimacy as a champion of the Kashmiri cause. Participating in funeral prayers for Afzal held in absentia by pro-Kashmir groups in Islamabad on Sunday, Malik called his hanging a “blot on Indian democracy”. Malik is in Pakistan to visit his wife, a Pakistani national.
Even as the pro-azadi JKLF leader urged leaders from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to organize public protests against Guru’s hanging, Saeed, who was to lead the funeral prayers reached the venue ahead of schedule and left after urging the Pakistani government not to maintain silence over the Kashmir issue.
Sources in the security establishment hinted Malik may be detained after he returns to India. Although there could be legal limitations to filing a case against him for an act committed on foreign soil, there is scope of some other charges being pressed against him.
Incidentally, the government had recently denied moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq permission to attend the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) meet in Cairo as Kashmiri separatists have earlier used the platform to attack New Delhi’s Kashmir policy.