Firebrand jailed separatist publicist to contest from Shopian

Srinagar: Apparently taking cue from Sheikh Abdur Rashid aka Engineer Rashid, the incarcerated leader of J&K Awami Itehad Party leader who won from Baramulla in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the firebrand separatist publicist Sarjan Ahmad Wagay aka Sarjan Barkati has joined the election fray. He will be contesting from home constituency Shopian of south Kashmir in the upcoming J&K Assembly elections.

Barkati, who has been called ‘pied piper of Kashmir’s azadi’ in many news reports in the recent past is lodged in a jail after he was rearrested by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) in August last year in a criminal case of crowdfunding and money laundering. Later his wife was also arrested. The SIA has accused them of generating an amount of ₹ 1.50 crore through crowdfunding and then using a portion of it for sustaining the secessionist-terrorist campaign and diverting a substantial part of the funds for their personal benefit. The family had denied the charges.

Barkati became known as ‘Azadi



Chacha’ among the Kashmiri youth mainly because of his fiery speeches at pro-freedom rallies and slain militants’ funerals during the unrest triggered by the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July 2016. The popular religious cleric is now set to contest the upcoming J&K Assembly election as independent candidate from Shopian after his daughter Sugra Barkati submitted papers on his behalf to Shopian’s returning officer on Tuesday, the last day for filing of nomination papers for the first phase of the polling to be held on September 18.

Talat Majeed and Sayar Ahmad Reshi, two former members of proscribed Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu and Kashmir (JeI) too have filed their nomination papers from Pulwama and Kulgam constituencies, respectively. The last time the JeI took part in elections was in 1987 when it joined the fray as part of Muslim United Front. Post-1989-90, it had been a part of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference, which advocated for poll boycotts from 1993 to 2003.