News Folio  Koshur Samachar- Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir banned for five years

The Centre government has banned the Jamaat- e-islami Jammu and Kashmir for a period of five years citing reasons that the outfit was in "close touch" with militant outfits. The Jamaat-e-Islami was banned under anti-terror laws with the Centre aiming at preventing any "escalation of secessionist movement" in the state.

The Ministry of Home Affairs issued the banning order a few days after the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested around 250 people, including the Jamaat- e-Islami chief, and claimed that the outfit was involved in activities intended at disrupting India's integrity.

The JI was first banned in 1975 during the emergency for opposing the Indira Abdullah accord that finally brought back the National Conference (NC) founder, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, into mainstream politics The organisation was again banned by the central government headed by V P Singh in 1990. That order was revoked in 1993 by the P V Narasimha Rao headed Congress government.

Jl leaders, including Muhammad Yusuf Shah. who later became the supreme commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit in his new avatar as Syed Salahudin, fought the 1987 assembly elections with other leaders who opposed the NC under the banner of the Muslim United Front (MuF) Many people believe that the single biggest reason for the Jl cadres supporting militancy and separatism was their engineered defeat during the 1987 elections.

After ending their association with electoral politics, senior Jl leaders supported the state's merger with Pakistan, although the JI cadres did not initially pick up weapons to join the armed struggle till militancy took the centre stage in the Valley in 1989 However, later Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) that had a predominant number of youth belonging to families of JI cadres was formed in September 1989 HM stands for state's merger with Pakistan.

After the HM was formed, the official crackdown on JI-run schools and other organisations involved in fundraising started Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir is a socio-political and religious organisation that was founded in 1945 as a chapter of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind during the Independence movement Jamaat-e-Islami was separated from its parent organisation in 1953 over differences in political ideology.

The Jamaat-e-Islami was an influential founder member of the undivided Hurriyat Conference from its inception in 1993 till 2003, when the amalgam suffered a vertical split led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani over alleged proxy participation in 2002 Assembly polls by some leaders of the People's Conference led by Sajad Gani Lone. The Jamaat withdrew from the Hurriyat and decided to focus on its social work while maintaining its separatist stand on Kashmir Issue.

Meanwhile, the ban order has been criticised by some mainstream politicians, including former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference.

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Courtesy: March 2019, Koshur Samachar