MLA Shaheen Kausar Dar

MLA Farzana Ahmed

After the British colonial rule, women have been suppressed in the unfortunate region due to the so-called political leaders who use religion as a tool in the political game. So the catastrophic results are now an open secret!

In the Indian-controlled Kashmir, former puppet chief ministers Sheikh Abdullah’s wife Begum Akbar Jehan, Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq’s sister Zenaib Begum and Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Mehbooba Mufti have remained members of the so-called assembly, but they couldn’t make any distinction as lawmakers. They remained house-wives even in the puppet assembly.

On the other hand, there are some women activists like Asiya Andrabi and Fareeda Behnjee but they are, according to people, controlled by the mullahs who are controlled by Pakistani secret agencies. Ms. Fareeda is a veiled lady but when she visited Pakistan when military dictator Gen. Musharraf’s deceptive liberalism was going on, she opened her face for the first time during meetings and photo sessions with government officials in Islamabad. That’s the way Kashmiri leaders obey their masters on either side of the divide.  

Mehbooba with father Mufti.

During the British Raj, a brave Kashmiri woman, Zoona, who was actually a milkmaid, had emerged as a gun-toting leader of the Quit Kashmir Movement. But during the decades of insurgency, not a single woman emerged in the ranks of the militants. The reason: the militants were backed by the Pakistani military establishment and funded by the Saudi government who suppress women in society.

Today, both parts of Kashmir are being Talibanized in a dangerous way… this is done by those people who have apparent liberal ideologies and appearance. “This is really shocking,” says a journalist from Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir. “This could make Kashmir a place like North or South Waziristan in few years.” 

The era of guns is over! Negotiations are the only way to win a political game anywhere in the world today. That is how liberation movements in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America are coming to the talking-table from the jungles.
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