{"id":16588,"date":"2019-02-11T09:54:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T04:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=16588"},"modified":"2019-02-11T09:54:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T04:24:18","slug":"i-heard-on-radio-that-my-son-would-be-hanged-following-day-maqbool-bhats-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=16588","title":{"rendered":"I heard on radio that my son would be hanged following day: Maqbool Bhat\u2019s mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Srinagar:<\/i><\/strong> Kashmir will observe a shutdown on Monday to mark the 35th death anniversary of a Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Muhammad MaqboolBhat, who was hanged in New Delhi\u2019s Tihar jail on this day in 1984.<\/i><\/p>\n

Shahmali Begum, mother of MaqboolBhat, says at her Kupwara residence that this day (Maqbool\u2019s hanging anniversary) has again come in her life.<\/i><\/p>\n

Asserting that hundreds of youth in Kashmir who laid down their lives in the past 30 years of armed struggle were \u201calso my sons\u201d, the aged woman said: \u201cAge-wise, I am advancing towards the grave, where my sons are waiting to welcome me. But I wish to see the dawn of freedom in Kashmir\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

Shahmali said she heard through radio a day earlier that her son would to be hanged at 7am the next day.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Saturday,\u201d she recalls.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cA pall of gloom descended on our family. I wished to see him once before his hanging, but I was helpless,\u201d she said, reiterating that \u201cthere are hundreds of Maqbools in Kashmir, like my son\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cHis hanging anniversary always gives me same emotions and reminds me of the night before he was hanged,\u201d she said.<\/i><\/p>\n

She said her eldest son, GhulamNabiBhat, was on way to Delhi to see Maqbool in Tihar but wasn\u2019t allowed to leave Kashmir.<\/i><\/p>\n

The state police arrested him at Srinagar, she said.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cMy another son Manzoor Ahmad was also arrested the same night. All the three brothers were in custody, but two of them were released after Maqbool was hanged,\u201d Shahmali said, lamenting that the government did not even gave the family Maqbool\u2019s body for the last rites. \u201cWhen my another son was killed in a gunfight, the then commanding officer of task force \u2018Gulbadan Singh\u2019 came here (to our house) and interrogated us. My two teeth were broken during the interrogation, which always reminds me of the cruelty of forces on us,\u201d Shahmali said, showing the broken teeth. <\/i><\/p>\n

No one was allowed to see Maqbool before his execution and he was buried inside the jail premises. MaqboolBhat\u2019s sister Mehmooda recalls: \u201cWe went to Srinagar airport to catch a flight to Delhi to see Maqbool, but the police did not let us proceed\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

MaqboolBhat\u2019s niece Midhat, 16, said: \u201cThey did not return any of his belongings from Tihar. I wish they had allowed us to take some soil from his grave, returned his personal diaries and facilitated us to visit the grave.\u201d The eldest of Shahmali\u2019s sons, GhulamNabiBhat, was a part of JKLF. He was killed in mid-nineties in an accident and is survived by an ailing wife and four children. Her another son, HabibullahBhat, went missing after his class 12 examination, Mehmooda says. Despite frantic searches by the family, he couldn\u2019t be traced and it was much later that the family got to know about his involvement with armed groups, she recalls. After the death of his brothers, ZahoorBhat, the youngest of all siblings, too \u201ccrossed the border.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cHe followed in his brothers\u2019 footsteps. He was in class 10 when he went to Azad Kashmir and got married there.\u201d He later returned to Jammu and Kashmir. Zahoor, who was arrested a year ago while addressing a rally on Maqbool\u2019s anniversary, is still under detention at Jammu\u2019s Kotbalwal jail. \u201cHe was brought two days back to police station Trehgam (Kupwara) where we urged the authorities to let our mother to meet him as she is suffering from a heart disease, but they denied,\u201d said Mehmooda. \u201cAt least on the occasion of Maqbool\u2019s 35th death anniversary, the police should have allowed our mother to meet Zahoor. No one helps us to plead his case in court, but I am enough to fight for his release,\u201d Mehmooda said.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cToday, when I walk through these streets, people say that my sons have made me proud. I want Azadi. It will be the ultimate tribute for my sons,\u201d Maqbool\u2019s mother says. Maqbool was hanged on February 11, 1984, more than 16 years after a court in Srinagar sentenced him to death on charges of murdering an Indian intelligence official Amar Chand way back in 1966.<\/i><\/p>\n

Pertinently, the Joint Resistance Leadership has called for complete protest shutdown in Kashmir on Monday to mark the 35th death anniversary of Bhat and to press for return of his mortal remains.<\/i><\/p>\n

POLICE TO IMPOSE SECTION 144 IN DOWNTOWN, MAISUMA<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, an official said restrictions under section 144 which bars assembly of four or more persons at a particular place, shall remain in place in Downtown and Maisuma on Monday.<\/i><\/p>\n

A police source said that section 144 will strictly remain in force in downtown areas that include MahrajGunj, SafaKadal, Nowhatta, Rainawari and Khanyar while as similar restrictions will remain place in Maisuma area of civil<\/i> lines.<\/p>\n

This Story Was Published On Greater Kashmir, One of the Largest circulated Regional Dailies in India<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Srinagar: Kashmir will observe a shutdown on Monday to mark the 35th death anniversary of a Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Muhammad MaqboolBhat, who was hanged in New Delhi\u2019s Tihar jail on this day in 1984. Shahmali Begum, mother of MaqboolBhat, says at her Kupwara residence that this day (Maqbool\u2019s hanging anniversary) has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}