Moderate Hurriyat activists clash

Cracks in moderate Hurriyat widened on Sunday with supporters of rival groups of the conglomerate clashing with each other during a seminar here.

Trouble erupted after supporters of moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq disrupted the speech of Nayeem Khan of the Democratic Freedom Party at the Hurriyat headquarter here.

“The supporters of Khan objected leading to a tussle in which both the parties exchanged blows. For some time the clashes continued and it was only after the intervention of a few senior leaders that the situation was brought under control,” eyewitnesses told Deccan Herald. They said the rival supporters were seen throwing furniture on another.

Khan’s DFP is a constituent of the moderate Hurriyat. The seminar was not attended by the Mirwaiz as he had been placed under house arrest by the authorities in his uptown Nigeen residence.

Rift within the moderate Hurriyat erupted earlier this month when executive council member Abdul Gani Bhat at a rally in north Kashmir said the UN plebiscite resolutions were no longer “practically implementable” in the state.

Bhat’s statement drew flak from several constituents of the moderate faction, including Khan’s National Front, fuelling speculation that the conglomerate was heading for a split.
Another executive council member and close ally of Khan, Shabir Shah told reporters that those speaking against the Hurriyat constitution should have been served a notice, an oblique reference to the Bhat.

While demanding Bhat’s expulsion from the Hurriyat he said: “I can’t brush shoulders with those elements who want to sell blood of martyrs.”