The killing of six al-Qaeda linked Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind militants in an encounter on 22 December, Saturday, in south Kashmir, is probably the biggest setback for the outfit, headed by Zakir Musa, since it appeared on the region’s insurgency radar in 2017, a year after Burhan Wani was killed.
Top militants of the ‘Tral module’ of the outfit, as it is known, were pinned by security forces in an “open field” in the wee hours of Saturday, close to an ‘elaborate hideout’ in an apple orchard, in Arampora village of Pulwama district.
“It was a clean operation,” SP Awantipora Mohammad Zahid Malik said. “The outfit has now been reduced to just four militants, including its self-proclaimed commander Zakir Musa. There was no collateral damage also.”
Among the slain militants in Saturday’s encounter is Sauliha Mohammed alias Rehan, the deputy chief of the outfit. Rehan was elevated to this position last month after the earlier No 2, Shakir Hassan Dar, was killed in an encounter on 27 November in Tral.
Four of the six militants had joined the outfit this year, the SP said.
Sauliha and Shakir, close associates of Musa, together parted ways from the Hizbul Mujahideen last year after the latter’s bitter feud with the outfit when he threatened to “behead”, without naming the Hurriyat leaders, those who advocated Kashmir as a “political cause”.
The Beheading Fiasco
According to the police, Zakir Musa, whose recent rumoured appearance in Punjab triggered a high alert in north India, joined Hizbul Mujahideen in 2013.
An A++ category militant, he was a close friend of Burhan. Both have been pictured together in the woods of Tral, in the months preceding Burhan’s killing.
But an audio statement in May last year that the armed insurgency in Kashmir was motivated by religion, rather than ‘freedom from India’, brought Musa at loggerheads with his parent outfit’s leadership sitting across the border.
“Kashmir’s fight is not political, but a religious one,” Musa says in the audio, much to the chagrin of the Hizb top-brass. “Hurriyat leaders don’t understand…We will have to leave the infidels ... slit their throats first and hang them in Lal Chowk.”
The Hizb dismissed Musa’s statement as his “personal opinion”, warning that the outfit will take “any step in favour of the Kashmir struggle,” .
“In these circumstances, any provocative statement or step could prove deadly for the (Kashmir) movement,” Hizb spokesman Saleem Hashmi said in a statement.
On 13 May last year, few hours after the Hizb statement was released to the media, Musa bid adieu to the outfit.
“I have had not said anything against a particular person or Geelani. I have said only against that individual who is against Islam and talks about freedom for secular state. If we are fighting for freedom for secular state, then I think we are not martyrs. If Hizb doesn’t represent me, then I also don’t represent them.”
On 27 July, over two months after calling it a day at Hizb, Musa was announced as head of a newly created Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind by "Global Islamic Media Front", an al-Qaeda-affiliated information network.
Secular Versus Religious
Musa’s “beheading” statement and a subsequent ‘clarification’ prompted a debate on secular versus religious underpinnings and the many social, economic and, most importantly, human costs of the ongoing turmoil that is pushing the third generation of Kashmiris into the brink of despair.
As violence and blood-letting went up in Kashmir in the aftermath of the 2016 turmoil, Musa’s statement also struck a chord with the disillusioned youths who are feeling betrayed by the hardline policies of Islamabad and New Delhi, and don’t see an end to the ongoing social, political and economic turmoil.
Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind advocates implementation of Sharia law in Kashmir, putting religion before secularism and bringing the outfit into a collision course with the Hizb which advocates a political resolution on Kashmir.
“With Salafism taking roots since the last decade in Kashmir and growing violence, youngsters are searching for a new meaning of life in religion which offers them a form of refuge. This will give global jihadist groups a fertile ground for propagating their politics,” Prof Noor A Baba, Dean of Social Sciences at the Central University of Kashmir said.
Collision Course
That Musa has managed to survive in all these years of intense crackdowns on militancy has been a subject of wild speculations and great conspiracy theories.
On social media, the engineering dropout has been touted as an “Indian agent”.
“The Valley’s relentless rumour mill has suspected him of serving as a front for many sides in Kashmir’s complex conflict — Indian security forces looking to weaken the Hizb, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence seeking to diversify their interests, and even factions within Kashmir’s political classes looking to settle scores,” Huffpost wrote in its profile of Musa.
In a viral video on social media earlier this year, three young militants are seen marching with their rifles amid sloganeering crowds who seem to be enjoying the spectacle unfolding in the Dachnipora belt of south Kashmir.
The jubilant crowd cheers – ‘Laskhar Walo Qadam Badao, Hum Tumhare Saath Hai’, ‘Paddar Padder Saddam Padder’ and ‘Aaya Aaya Sher Aaya’.
Some even try in vain to shake hands with militants who march on aimlessly as the mobile camera follows them. Police sources believe the trio was returning from a village after giving ‘gun-salute’ to one of their comrades killed along with Saddam Padder, the last surviving militant of the Hizb’s Burhan Wani group, on 6 May.
Then, someone from the crowd shouts – ‘Musa Musa, Zakir Musa’. With rifle in left hand, a militant, visibly the leader of the group, raises his right hand, makes a turn around and halts. As if on cue, the sloganeering also stops. “Why did you shout ‘Musa Musa’,” he asks, angrily.
In this rapidly changing landscape of Kashmir, where violence is becoming fashionable and youngsters are searching for a new meaning of life in death, there are no easy answers to such questions.
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