Ceasefire is not a surrender: Ex-Hizb commander

Srinagar,
A former Hizbul Mujahideen commander, who participated in talks with the Central government in 2000, said the objective of any ceasefire should be to give “peace a chance” and focus on resolution of disputes.

“The ceasefire is not anybody’s surrender; neither it’s the success or defeat of the two warring factions who declare it,” Zaffar Akbar Bhat, who commanded the Hizbul Mujahideen in Srinagar and Budgam districts during the 2000 ceasefire, told The Tribune.

Bhat is now a Hurriyat Conference leader and also the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Salvation Movement.

He said the ceasefire, proposed by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, if announced, should be declared on “all fronts be it in the Kashmir hinterland or on the borders”. “All the sides involved should be committed to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, otherwise it is bound to go waste, as it happened with the previous ceasefires,” he said.

Bhat was then Hizb commander for Srinagar and Budgam when the ceasefire was announced by the outfit’s operations commander, Abdul Majeed Dar, on July 24 in 2000. The offer was promptly responded to by the Central government by suspending all anti-militancy operations across the state.

Bhat was a key member of the outfit’s five-member ‘dialogue committee’ that held parleys with then Union Home Secretary Kamal Pandey after the group declared the famous July 24, 2000, ceasefire. Recalling the past experience, Zaffar said it should also be taken into mind that as and when ceasefire is declared, the “vested interests on all sides, be it within the India, Pakistan or Kashmir, would come to the fore for sabotaging the process”. “That needs to be kept in mind.”

“Before the ceasefire, India called Hizb a terrorist group and didn’t accept us as a party to the dispute but the moment Union Home Secretary Kamal Pandey sat with us across the dialogue table, they (India) accepted us as a party to the dispute,” Bhat said while recalling the famous cricket match that was played between soldiers of 4 Rashtriya Rifles and a team comprising Hizb members at Khipora village in Kupwara on August 4, 2000.

“The Hizb boys played this match with guns in their hands. It was not a surrender as our boys played the game with guns in their hands. Not a single bullet was fired,” he said, adding that the 2000 ceasefire announcement was a “unanimous decision of the Hizb command and council.”

He said during the parleys, the Hizb placed three conditions before the Union Home Secretary to move ahead. “The first was to accept Kashmir as a dispute. The second was to accept the Hizbul Muhajideen as a force – The Kashmir Liberation Army – till the final settlement of the dispute. The third was the inclusion of Pakistan in the dialogue. The talks got stuck mainly on the last two points,” he said.

Bhat said any ceasefire declaration is preceded by extensive ground work at many fronts and same was the case with the declaration of ceasefire in July 2000.

He said the five commanders, who held talks with the Central government had included Amir Khan, who is now the deputy chief of Hizbul Mujahideen.