Srinagar: Jamaat-e-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir has faced controversy over its recent election stance expressing readiness to participate in elections if the ban on them was lifted, sparking online backlash from Kashmiris, who voiced feelings of betrayal, accusing the group of forsaking the Kashmir cause and cursing them for the people killed in the pursuit of resistance.
“We didn’t boycott any election. We stayed away from the election because of the situation (in Kashmir). We are holding talks with the centre. If the ban on Jamaat is revoked, we will participate in the (upcoming assembly) election,” former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Ghulam Qadir Wani, announced on Wednesday, May 16.
However, a press statement by Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir which circulated on social media rejected claims of Wani that the decision was made collectively, attributing it to individual opinion.
“Tables will be turned. The blood of Kashmiri people who sacrificed their lives for this cause wasn’t this cheap,' said a netizen in a post on X."
"Jamat-e-Islami’s game plan is that they will accept the Indian constitution, lick their boots, and then they will wage a war against the same constitution,” said another netizen.
The socio-political group is widely believed to be the ideological fountainhead of Hizbul Mujahideen, Kashmir’s largest militant group.
The timing of the recent announcement coincides with Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to Kashmir during ongoing elections. There are rumors of possible meetings between Shah and Jamaat leaders. However, BJP has downplayed the upcoming two-day visit of Amit Shah to the Kashmir valley as “apolitical”, even though it comes in the midst of the ongoing parliamentary polls.
From 1965 to 1987, the Jamaat contested both Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Kashmir but after the 1987 state elections, widely believed to have been rigged, the Jamaat abandoned electoral politics and threw its weight behind the separatist movement.
More than 300 core members of the group have been arrested since the BJP led Government of India abrogated article 370 of the Indian constitution in 2019, the outfit was banned as an “unlawful association” followed by a series of raids and arrests including closure of schools, charity, relief work and property worth hundreds of crores owned by the outfit was seized under the anti-terror law.