Commentary Politics

Why Multiple Arrests are only ensuring that Masarat Alam will don Geelani’s mantle in the Valley

25 May 2015
The release of Masarat Alam,a Kashmiri separatist leader, on 7 March 2015 resulted in public outrage at the order. A month later, Alam had been arrested under the Public Safety Act and was back in jail for raising Pro-Pakistan slogan amidst a crowd.
REUTERS/Danish Ismail
The release of Masarat Alam,a Kashmiri separatist leader, on 7 March 2015 resulted in public outrage at the order. A month later, Alam had been arrested under the Public Safety Act and was back in jail for raising Pro-Pakistan slogan amidst a crowd.
REUTERS/Danish Ismail

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The release of Masarat Alam, a Kashmiri separatist leader, from jail in March this year generated outrage.

“I lend my voice to this outrage,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 9 March. “This is not one party’s but the nation’s outrage.”

Essentially, the “outrage”—aakrosh as Modi called it—was directed at the orders of the Supreme Court, which had facilitated the release of Alam—today the face of Kashmiri separatism in India.

Modi was responding to the fact that the Parliament had witnessed a desperately debilitated opposition make its most potent attack over the issue since he rose to power last year.

Nawaz Gul Qanungo is a journalist based in Srinagar. He is on Twitter @drqanungo

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