As long as Kashmiris play with bats and not guns, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sees no problem in a cricket league that glorified young militant commanders by naming teams after them.
The controversial cricket league, which concluded recently in south Kashmir, was organised in memory of Khalid Muzaffar Wani, the slain brother of Burhan Wani, Hizbul Mujahideen commander, who has become a new face of militancy in Kashmir.
Of the 16 participating teams, three — ‘Burhan Lions’, ‘Khalid Aryans’ and ‘Aabid Khan Qalandars’ — were named after young militant commanders.
Burhan’s brother was killed by the Army when he had gone to meet his brother in a forest near south Kashmir’s Tral town, his family alleges.
Security forces, however, claim Khalid, an active gunman, was killed in a shootout in April last year in the thick Tral forest. As the mystery surrounding his killing has still not been cleared up, his friends say they organised the cricket tournament to remember him a year after his death.
But the tournament sent Kashmir political circles into a tizzy, with the ruling PDP and the opposition National Conference trading barbs and jeering at each other.
National Conference president Omar Abdullah teased Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti with a cheeky tweet, reminding her that all this was happening in the PDP’s south Kashmir bastion from where she got elected to the Lok Sabha.
“Lest we forget, this south Kashmir being mentioned is Mehbooba Mufti’s Lok Sabha constituency,” the former Chief Minister wrote on Twitter.
PDP leader and government spokesperson Naeem Akhter today said there was no problem in naming cricket teams after local youth who had become militant commanders because there was still “a definitive change in the general mindset”.
“Isn’t it encouraging that youth, even when influenced by militant icons, choose to play a harmless game of cricket than take up guns,” Akhter said, adding that youth have to be won by creating a credible governance system where justice is denied to none.
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