Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), founded by Amanullah Khan and Maqbool Bhat

Maqbool Bhat

Maqbool Bhat , also known as Maqbool Butt, was a Kashmiri militant and co-founder of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. He was sentenced to death for murder by the Delhi High Court and hanged on 11 February 1984....

, is a Kashmiri nationalist organization founded in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, UK on May 29, 1977. From then until 1994 it was an active terrorist organization with branches in several cities and towns of the UK, and in several other countries of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, USA and Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. In 1982 branches were established in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Azad Kashmir borders the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north west, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of People's Republic of China to the north and the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, to the east.A...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

and in 1987 in Indian-administered Kashmir (Jammu & Kashmir).

JKLF seeks independence of Jammu and Kashmir state from both India and Pakistan.
The JKLF claims that they are not Islamist, but are nationalist, and opposes the emergence of the territories into either Pakistan

Pakistan

or India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

but rather wants the region of Kashmir

Kashmir

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

to separate from the three countries and become independent.

Splits and reunification

The JKLF split into two factions after the group based in Indian-administered Kashmir led by Yasin Malik

Yasin Malik

Yasin Malik is the chairman of one of the two factions of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, the chairman for other faction is Farooq Siddiqi . The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front , founded by Amanullah Khan and Maqbool Bhat, is a Kashmiri nationalist organization founded in Birmingham, UK on May 29,...

publicly renounced violence in 1995. Their counterparts in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan-administered Kashmir

, led by Amanullah Khan refused to do so, thereby precipitating a split in the party.

In 2005, India allowed Yasin Malik to visit Pakistan for the first time. The two leaders, Malik and Khan seized the opportunity to meet each other in Pakistan. In June 2005, a decade after the split, Malik and Khan agreed to reunite the JKLF. The unification of JKLF was started by Farooq Siddiqi (Farooq Papa) while Yasin Malik visited the US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

but did not mature as conditions by both sides were not accepted.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4077122.stm

However, in December 2005, most of the senior members of the JKLF separated from Yasin Malik and formed a new JKLF with Farooq Siddiqi (Farooq Papa) as its Chairman along with Javed Mir, Salim Nannaji and Iqbal Gundroo later joined by the longest (16 years) imprisoned Kashmiri former militant Bitta Karate. Lately Tahir Mir former chief of Students Liberation Front too parted ways with Malik and joined JKLF headed by Farooq Siddiqi (Farooq Papa).http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/84588/.Kashmir watchers think that Yasin Malik's shifting policy of seeking an internal solution with India after its alleged secret meeting with the Prime Minister of India

Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...

led to the secession of its senior leaders, (see Praveen Swami

Praveen Swami

Praveen Swami is Diplomatic Editor of The Daily Telegraph, London, and writes on international strategic and security issues. He was earlier Associate Editor of The Hindu, for which he reported on the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, the Maoist insurgency in India, and Islamist groups.-Career:He...

; PMO in secret talks with secessionists.http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/25/stories/2006012506451400.htm http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/archives/archives2005/kashmir20051223c.html) Farooq Papa is considered to be a hard liner ideologically. Farooq Siddiqi (Farooq Papa) supports the involvement of the European Union in resolving the dispute, and has called on EU officials to follow up the visit of an ad hoc European parliament delegation to Kashmir in 2004.http://www.madrid11.net/articles/kashmir310507

Since 1995, Yasin Malik has renounced violence and calls for strictly peaceful methods to come to a settlement on the Kashmir issue. http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsJan2005/int1jan2005.htm
Yasin Malik also considers the Hindu Kashmiri

Kashmiri Pandit

The Kashmiri Pandits are a Hindu Brahmin community originating from Kashmir, a mountainous region in South Asia.-Background:The Hindu caste system of the region was influenced by the influx of Buddhism from the time of Asoka, around the third century BCE, and a consequence of this was that the...

s, about 400,000 Hindus who were driven out of Kashmir after alleged violent attacks by the separatists presently staying in refugee camps in Jammu and other Indian cities, to be an integral part of Kashmiri society and has insisted on their right of return.http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/01/21/stories/2004012103871200.htm

Sheikh Mohammed Afzal (S.M. Afzal) is currently representing the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (Aman group) in Indian controlled Jammu & Kashmir.http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1226160148&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news

Activities

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.