Click to play videoSrinagar: The separatists appear separated from the voter mood in Jammu and Kashmir. Despite a call for poll boycott, people turned up in large numbers to cast their votes.
So, just hours before counting begins on Sunday, the separatists in an effort to make their presence felt took to the streets. But they realised that things have not gone their way.
“It is not a setback. People have distinguished the Kashmir issue with day-to-day issues because we are not in a position to address these issues and so they voted. Moreover, the mainstream parties' mandate revolves around the Kashmir issue. That, too, prompted the vote,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.
But the separatists say that they are left out because the state government has denied them equal opportunity. Several separatist leaders like JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik, Shabir Ahamd Shah were arrested and the trio Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Syed Ali Geelani and Sajjad Lone were put under house arrest during elections.
But conceding that things have not gone their way, they have now called for introspection.
“For 20 years we have been coasting, drifting and reacting. A time comes when we should stand in front of the mirror and analyse where we went wrong,” separatist leader Sajjad Lone said.
An admission that they misread the pulse of the people and that the high voter turnout was a setback to the Kashmir issue, the separatists have called for a fresh strategy and vowed to rise again from the ashes.
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