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Nice read, sir
Very nice read. As always
Pl read an excerpt from my book "Not Just Cricket" where I recount covering first public rally of Kashmiri leader Sajjad Lone, who had decided to participate in elections in 2009.......
In 2009, I had another opportunity to visit Kashmir, to do my first-ever report on a political event. That year, Sajjad Lone announced that he would contest the Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate.
Sajjad’s father was the well-known separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone, who was killed by a terrorist in 2002 during a public rally. Sajjad was articulate and spoke in fluent English, never mincing his words in advocating for Kashmir’s independence from India on TV debates. He had inherited his political outfit, the People’s Conference, from his father. Until then, the party had boycotted elections, much like all the other separatist leaders and parties since 1987. But in 2009 he had decided to abandon that policy.
From Kashmir’s point of view, it was a stunning development for a mainstream separatist to swear by the Indian Constitution and participate in its democratic processes. Being a Kashmiri Pandit, I found this an exciting scenario and I wanted to go to Kashmir to meet Lone and write an eyewitness account of his first rally. My employers agreed and I went on a short visit that had a lot of hectic travel and emotional churning.
I travelled from Srinagar to Handwara town, home to the Lones and one of the hotbeds of militancy in the nineties.
I had to take the Baramulla–Kupwara highway, a road not many would dare to take during the peak of militancy. I had two people accompanying me: a taxi driver called Ali Mohammed, who had driven many visiting journalists on their Kashmir assignments, and Waseem Andrabi, a photographer.
Ali Mohammed was old enough to vividly remember those peaceful days when Pandits were an integral part of life in Kashmir, and he was of immense help in finding old connections and forgotten names for me. Andrabi, much younger and full of energy, represented a generation that had only lived under the shadow of guns, curfews, protests, terror killings and repression.
To be continued.....