Zakir Musa revolts against Hizbul Mujahideen

In a revolt against his senior commanders based in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Zakir Musa on Saturday dissociated himself from the outfit, saying he can’t “sacrifice his life for the establishment of a secular state.”

“From today on, I have no association with any outfit. I am of my own. I don’t represent Hizbul Mujahideen,” Zakir said in the latest six-and-a-half minute audio attributed to him and shared on social media.

The statement came hours after PoK based spokesperson of the outfit Saleem Hashmi termed Zakir's threat to separatist leaders as “unacceptable.”

“Such a statement is unacceptable to us. It reflects the personal opinion of Zakir . Post Burhan Wani’s martyrdom, the nation and the leadership are united at every front and taking ahead the struggle for freedom and Islam to its end," Hashmi was quoted by a local news gathering agency as saying.

Zakir, who took over the reins of Hizbul from slain Burhan Wani last year, had on Friday threatened to slit the throats of senior separatist leaders and hang them in the city centre at Lal Chowk if they dared repeat that Kashmir represented a political and not pan-Islamic struggle.

Zakir, who joined militancy after leaving his BTech course in Chandigarh in 2013, called separatist leaders “hypocrites, infidels and followers of evil.”

After Hashmi's rebuke, Zakir released an audio clip asserting that he stands by his earlier message. "So, if Hizbul Mujahideen doesn’t represent me then I also don’t represent them," he said.

"After my last audio message, lot of confusion is being spread in Kashmir. I stand by my speech and by my message. It doesn’t bother me what others say, but I stand by my speech. But see I have had not said anything against a particular person or Geelani sahab but I have said only against that individual who is against Islam and talks about freedom for secular state," Zakir, who is believed to be operating from south Kashmir, asserted.

He also says that he has no association with global terror organisations like the ISIS and Al-Qaeda. “I have no association with ISIS, Al-Qaeda. I even don’t know whether they are right or wrong. I don’t have time to research about them,” he said.

Zakir's last two audio message, in video format, were full of quotes of Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, the US-Yemeni scholar and al-Qaeda ideologue who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

Deccan Herald could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio clips. However, sources said, the voice matched Musa’s earlier video and audio clips.