Jammu, May 1
The Jamait-e-Islami has dissociated itself from the ideology of jihad being propounded by one of its leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The Majlis Shoura of the Jamait-e-Islami in Kashmir has opposed any form of violence and supports peace moves.
As a cadre-based organisation, the Jamait leadership could have taken disciplinary action against Syed Ali Shah Geelani for going against the stand of the Majlis Shoura. It could have either expelled him from the organisation or recalled him from the Hurriyat Conference and sent someone else in his place in the Conference as member of the Executive Committee.
But it has avoided adopting any such course. Sources say that two factors have weighed heavy on the Jamait leadership and on Geelani who also dared not quit the parent organisation.
First, the Jamait leadership has been aware of the losses it suffered when a large number of its activists were eliminated either by security forces or renegade militants. Hence, it decided to dissociate itself from any form of violence. It wanted to buy peace with the security forces so that the Jamait leaders could concentrate on enlarging its membership through religious preachings.
The Jamait leadership did not want death warrants to be signed by the militants against its leaders and activists if they either recalled Mr Geelani from the Hurriyat Conference or expelled him from the parent organisation.
Secondly, the leadership found itself sandwiched between the guns held by the security forces, militants and the renegades and it decided to play safe to keep the organisation intact. For Mr Geelani, it was not easy to quit the Jamait-e-Islami of which he is a founder member. He would have earned the displeasure of the fundamentalists and got himself isolated had he resigned from the Jamait or the APHC. In fact, his supporters have advised him to wait for the Jamait leadership to expel him and if that happened, Mr Geelani would be in a position to assume more political weight.
Since he has not deviated from his pro-Pak stand, he has the backing of the agencies across the border. He has been treating it as the main source of his strength which has encouraged him to measure swords with the Kashmir Mirwaiz, Molvi Umar Farooq, and Mr Abdul Gani Lone with whom he has been in confrontation during the past over one year. As such, he would prefer to play the role of a hardliner in the Jamait and the APHC.
