About Maqbool Butt

Escape from Prison

Soon they started planning escape from the prison and within a month and half managed to escape from the prison in Srinagar. Maqbool Bhatt later wrote in great detail about the escape and submitted that before the Special Trial Court in Pakistan where he was tried along with other NLF members for ‘Ganga’ hijacking. However, only a brief account of this ‘great escape’ is included here from one of his interviews:

“On 22nd October 1968 we started planning to escape from the prison and after one and a half month of intense planning we managed to put this plan to practice on 8th December 1968 at 2:10 am by breaking the prison wall. Two of us were on death sentence and the third one with us was a prisoner from Azad Kashmir. It took us 16 days to reach to the first border check post of Azad Kashmir. We reached to Muzaffarabad on 25th December and were interrogated in the interrogation centre of Muzaffarabad till March 1969”.

Answering a question about their arrest in Azad Kashmir, Maqbool Bhatt said:

“What can I say about that? It was the government of Ayub Khan (in Pakistan) and what can I say about Ayub Khan. This man neither had the welfare of the Pakistani people at his heart nor of the Kashmiris. His government been very cruel to us.  I was severely tortured while in the concentration camp. The pain increased with the thoughts that it was inflicted by our own (Khawaja op. cit. p249).

They were released on 8th March 1969 when PF, NLF and National Students Federation (NSF) activists staged series of demonstrations in Islamabad. In November 1969 the annual convention of Plebiscite Front was held in Muzaffarabad where Maqbool Bhatt was elected its president.

While recognising the setback caused by the premature exposure of NLF in the IOK, Maqbool Bhatt was of the opinion that it inspired and motivated more Kashmiris to join the armed struggle:

“Now we have entered in a new phase. Not only are we able to speak in the language of power that is the only language India understands but also are able to make the world community, which has ignored our existence, to recognise us. In this world you have to have your existence recognised. We have our existence recognised and we will rest only when the existence of the entire Kashmiri nation is recognised, Inshallah” (op. cit.)

After being elected as the president of PF, Maqbool Bhatt spent next few years in campaigning for the political rights in Gilgit Baltistan and ‘Azad’ Kashmir. The focus of campaign on this side was against the puppet status of Azad Kashmir and such controlling institutions as the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Chief Secretary Office. With Gilgit Baltistan the situation was even worse. These parts of the State were directly controlled by Pakistan through a political agent. The PF launched a week long activities to highlight this situation and announced that next convention of PF will be held in G&B. During this week PF activists including Maqbool Bhatt, Khaliq Ansari, Mir Qayyum, Amanullah Khan and GM Mir were arrested and forcefully exiled from the State boundaries.

The Ganga Hijacking

The event that brought Kashmir Issue to the attention of the world and lime lighted Maqbool was the hijacking of an Indian Fokker plane ‘Ganga’. There are several official and common theories about the background and impacts of this hijacking. However, only a brief account can be included in the scope of this article.

Ganga, an Indian airliner was hijacked on 30 January 1971 at 1305 hours while on its routine flight from Srinagar to Jammu. In total it was carrying 30 people including four crew members. The Hijackers were two Sringar boys Hashim and Ashraf Qureshi both in their late teens. They brought the plane to Lahore airport and demanded the release of about two dozen political prisoners of NLF in the Indian prisons. On 1st February 1971 all the passengers and crew were released and sent back to India via Amritsar and the ‘Ganga’ was set on fire. This incident was later used by India to suspend the over flights to East Pakistan of Pakistani aircrafts over Indian Territory (Lamb, 1991, p.289).  The situation later led to the 1971 war between India and Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. The hijackers and Maqbool Bhatt under whose instructions hijackers said the hijacking was carried out were initially praised as heroes but then suddenly they along with hundreds of NLF activists were arrested and interrogated in Shahee Qila (Royal Forte) Lahore and ‘Dulahee Camp’ Muzafrabad. Details of the interrogation can be found in the recently published book by the Institute of Kashmir Studies Mirpur, ‘Devwanoon Pe Kiya Guazari’ (What the Devotees been through).

Six of the prisoners including Maqbool Bhatt, G.M. Lone, Mir Abdul Qayyum, Mir Abdul Manan and the two hijackers Hashim Qureshi and Ashraf Qureshi were later tried in a Special Court of Pakistan under the charges of collaboration with the Indian intelligence services.

According to Khawaja (p.132) Maqbool Bhatt was charged under the ‘Enemy Act 1943’ of the Indian Penal Code. Only a few years earlier he was tried under the same colonial Act by the Indian Government in the Indian Occupied Kashmir. The case started in December 1971 and after a long trial in which 1984 prosecuting and 1942 defence witnessed were called in was concluded in May 1973. All but Hashim Qureshi were cleared of all charges other than dealing with arms and explosives etc. Hashmim Qureshi was sentenced for fourteen years imprisonment. The long statement Maqbool Bhatt submitted for this case is perhaps the most detailed reflection on his political ideology. While it cannot be incorporated in full, a brief quote from this statement would not be out of place here:

“I can say without any hesitation that I have not designed any conspiracy nor have I been a part of any group of conspirers. My character has always been transparent and unambiguous. However, I have done one thing and that is the rebellion against ignorance, greed of wealth, exploitation, oppression, slavery and hypocrisy. If the ruling class of Pakistan that is a product of imperialism and represented by the bureaucracy and military dictatorship of this country views this as conspiracy then I have no hesitation in accepting the charge”.

It will be interesting to note here that Ganga Case was carried out under special presidential orders of the then president of Pakistan Yaha Yaha Khan according to which the accused were denied the right to appeal against the decision of this Special Court. Despite many requests and protests in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan the right to appeal for Ganga accused was not accepted. According to Mir Qayyum, in a conversation with the founding president of PF and veteran Kashmiri independence activist Abdul Khaliq Ansari who is also a renowned lawyer in ‘Azad Kashmir’, the then law minister of Pakistan Mehmood Ali Qasuri said:

‘Where in the world do you have the right to appeal against the Supreme Court decision?’

In response Khaliq Ansari asked:

‘And where in the world the Supreme Court has ever been used as ‘Trial Court’?

According to Mir Abdul Qayyum, the right to appeal was restored only after the British Kashmiris warned several Pakistani ministers on their visits to Britain that the unlawful tactics of the Pakistani rulers to convict these Kashmiris will be exposed (Mir Qayyum, unpublished documents of NLF). Using this right, the NLF filed an appeal against the Special Court’s decision about Hashim Quereshi. But it took seven years before this appeal was heard at Supreme Court where Hashim was also cleared (Khawaja op. cit. p.151).

In terms of Kashmir, the ‘Ganga’ trial had many far reaching affects on the NLF and on the wider independence politics. Firstly it affectively paralysed NLF that lost many members due to physical torture, psychological pressure and financial losses. Many also became disillusioned and disappointed due to various misunderstandings that were developed between the leadership during the course of trial. Maqbool Bhatt however continued his efforts to reorganise the struggle in both the armed and political fields. In 1975 the PF decided to participate in the elections held under the Bhutto’s Peoples Party Government. Maqbool Bhatt who at this point had no office responsibility in PF also contested the election. All PF candidates, including Maqbool Bhatt, lost to PPP candidates. The PF commentators claim that the result had a lot to do with massive vote riggings in favour of PPP candidates.

The Last Crossing

With NLF dismantled and PF demoralised, Maqbool Bhatt once again crossed over to the Indian occupied Kashmir against the advice of many of his friends and comrades in May 1976. This time he went with Abdul Hamid Bhatt and Riaz Dar. Within few days of crossing they were spotted and arrested by the Indian forces. In 1978 the Indian Supreme Court restored death sentence on Maqbool Bhatt and he was transferred to Delhi’s Tihaar Prison. After eight long years in prison Maqbool Bhatt was hanged on 11th February 1984 while the legal team was waiting for the case to be reopened on the grounds of flaws in the trial that convicted Maqbool Bhatt of murder. His execution was carried out in haste to avenge the killing of an Indian diplomat in Birmingham by an unknown group ‘Kashmir Liberation Army’. Rovendra Mahatre was kidnapped in the first week of February 1984 from his Birmingham office by KLA who demanded among other things the release of Maqbool Bhatt. Thus was ended the life of one of the greatest revolutionaries of modern Kashmiri history and was born what Kashmiris remember as Shaheed e Azam (the greatest martyr). Ironically, death warrants of Maqbool Bhatt were signed by Dr Farooq Abdullah the then Chief Minister of IOK who spent several days with Maqbool Bhatt in ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Pakistan in 1974 and who said later that ‘I have found Maqbool Bhatt a very romantic man, just like Che Guevara’. He could have added ‘like Shiekh Abdullah in 1930s’, whose politics initially inspired Maqbool Bhatt as a student at St Joseph College.

An Imprisoned Martyr in the world’s largest democracy

India is acclaimed by the democratic world as the largest democracy on earth. While there is no doubt that democratic traditions and institutions in India are far more established, when it comes to Kashmir India is no more than an occupier and oppressive state that rules Kashmir through colonial like structures and authoritarian means with little regards for the democratic values, human rights and civil liberties. This neo-colonial face of Indian rule in Kashmir was demonstrated in its worst form in the way Maqbool Bhatt was hanged and what followed.

Not only that Maqbool Bhatt was executed in revenge, no one even the family members were allowed to see him before execution and after execution he was buried inside the prison premises. Maqbool Bhatt’s sister says:

‘we went at the Srinagar airport to catch flight for Delhi but the police did not let us go’. His niece tells ‘they did not return any of his belongings from Thiar’. I wish they let us have some soil from his grave in the prison’ (www.rediff.com)

Mohammed Yasin Bhatt another Kashmiri who was imprisoned in Tihar for his involvement in freedom struggle wrote to ‘Kashmir Times’ Britain in 1995 that during his time in Tihar prison he spoke to several prisoners and prison staff about Maqbool Bhatt. They all remember him with great respect for his dignified behaviour and for his struggle in prison for the rights of prisoners and the lower rank prison staff. He further wrote:

“Maqbool Sahib’s grave is the only one in Tihar prison which has a wall built around it by the prisoners. Every month prison staff cleans it and prisoners light fragrant candles on it and pray for him according to their own faiths”.

Despite the confidence building measures and ceasefire between the Indian and Pakistani armies in Kashmir the repeated demands by Kashmiris for the return of Maqbool Bhatt’s remains are not responded to and this icon of Kashmiri liberation struggle is kept in prison even 28 years after his execution. The only other example of this kind of disregard for human rights of political activists comes to mind is that of Baghat Singh, Sukh Dev and Raj Guru whose bodies were also not returned to their families by the British colonial authorities after execution in 1930s.

Iftikhar Gilani, a Delhi based Kashmiri journalist who spent ten months in Tihar orison in 2004 wrote in his book that Maqbool Bhatt’s grave in prison has been built over. However, a campaign for the release of Maqboll Bhatt’s mortal remains is gradually growing. There are two graves waiting for the body of Maqbool Bhatt. One in the martyrs’ cemetery in Srinagar’s old Eidgah district where its tombstone has inscription in green Urdu letters that read “this is where Shaeed e Azam[ (the greatest martyr) Maqbool Bhatt will one day be laid to rest’. Another grave for Maqbool Bhatt is between the graves of his brothers in the courtyard of the house where he was born in Trahagam.

Recently Mabool Bhatt’s mother has joined the campaign for the release of Maqbool Bhatt’s remains from Tihar Prison.

This unique situation about the burial of Maqbool Bhatt was nicely depicted by Mohammed Yamin, a Kashmiri poet from ‘Azad’ Kashmir in his poem ‘Roashni Ka Shaeed e Awal’ (the first martyr for the light) that is now juxtaposed on a large portrait of Maqbool Bhatt and hangs on the front room walls of many pro independence Kashmiris across AJK and diaspora from this part of Kashmir.

Kahaan Tu Soya Khabar Nahee

Khabar Nahee Qabar Nahee

Magar yeh bandey nisar terey

Karror dil hein mazar terey

Many do not know where you are buried

There is no news, there is no grave

But for the millions you inspired

You live in their hearts and minds

(Khawaja, 1997, p.6)

The author originally from Mirpur in Pakistani occupied Kashmir settled in Britain since 1988 has written extensively on different aspects of Kashmiri independence politics and diaspora and can be reached through shams.translasian@gmail.com

Prev 1 2  

To get KFM monthly magazine (the movement) enter your correct E-mail.

We will never share your email publicly or to any other person.

Copyright ©2022, KFMovement.org. All rights reserved.