Other States - Jammu & Kashmir

He had the courage of conviction

By Shujaat Bukhari

BERLIN MAY 24. Abdul Gani Lone who has been assassinated was a symbol of resistance in the 13-year-old bloody history of Kashmir. The State has lost a friend of peace. Lone not only emerged as a key leader in Kashmir's struggle, he also tuned the ``struggle'' in accordance with the changing situations.

Bold and courageous in words as well as in deed, Lone always gave a tough time to the security forces. In 1993, when the siege of Hazratbal was on and the Hurriyat Conference organised a march from the Badshah bridge, most of the leaders, on noticing the Border Security Force, slipped away. Lone was the only one who was beaten black and blue by the Commandant.

Irrespective of his ill-health for which he had gone to the U.S. for a second time, Lone always faced the brute force of the security forces.

He not only survived several attempts at the hands of ``unknown assailants or unidentified gunmen''. The local Shiv Sena leader recently assaulted Lone in Jammu in the full view of the electronic media but Lone had no rancour. ``These are the people who are enemies of India,'' he told this reporter. ``I am not afraid of death,'' he said that day. From his student days, Lone had been fiercely independent and had the courage of conviction. That is why he quit the Syed Mir Qasim Ministry to join the Janata Party. He later founded his own People's Conference. He also broke away from the Muslim United Front in 1987 which had emerged as the main Opposition to the National Conference.

In the Hurriyat Conference also, he always put across his views without hesitation whether they were accepted or not. He was criticised by the extremist forces on the Pakistani soil and took the Pakistan Government to task for the apathetic status of Kashmiri migrants in Pak. Occupied Kashmir in ``Azad Kashmir'.

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• Pak. must be involved in talks: Hurriyat
• He had the courage of conviction
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