All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is an alliance of 26 political, social and religious organizations formed on 9 March 1993, as a united political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri independence in the Kashmir conflict. Mehmood Ahmed Saghar was the first convener of the APHC-PAK chapter when the alliance was established in 1993. The alliance has historically been viewed positively by Pakistan as it contests the claim of the Indian government over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The organisation is split into two main factions, those being the Mirwaiz and Geelani factions. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is the founder and chairman of Mirwaiz faction and Masarat Alam Bhat is the interim chairman of Geelani faction, who succeeded Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the founder of the faction after his death.
Hizbul Mujahideen, also spelled Hizb-ul-Mujahidin, is a Pakistan-affiliated Islamist militant organisation that has been engaged in the Kashmir insurgency since 1989. It aims to separate Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan, and is thus one of the most important players in the region as it evolved the narrative of the Kashmir conflict by steering the struggle away from nationalism and towards jihadism.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a formerly armed, political separatist organisation active in both the Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered territories of Kashmir. It was founded by Amanullah Khan, with Maqbool Bhat also credited as a co-founder. Originally a militant wing of the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the organization officially changed its name to the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in Birmingham, England on 29 May 1977; from then until 1994 it was an active Kashmiri militant organization. The JKLF first established branches in several cities and towns of the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, as well as in the United States and across the Middle East. In 1982, it established a branch in the Pakistani-administered territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and by 1987, it had established a branch in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley.
Yasin Malik is a Kashmiri separatist leader and former militant who advocates the separation of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan. He is the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which originally spearheaded armed militancy in the Kashmir Valley. Malik renounced violence in 1994 and adopted peaceful methods to come to a settlement of the Kashmir conflict. In May 2022, Malik pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against the state, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ravindra Hareshwar Mhatre was a 48 year old Indian diplomat in the United Kingdom who was kidnapped and later killed in Birmingham in 1984 by British Kashmiri militants who were associated with the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.
Maqbool Bhat (1938–1984), was a Kashmiri separatist leader, who went to Pakistan and founded the National Liberation Front (NLF), which was a precursor to the present day Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). He is also termed as the "Father of the Nation of Kashmir" Baba-e-Qaum, by the locals. Bhat carried out multiple attacks in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. He was arrested and sentenced to double death sentence. He was hanged on 11 February 1984 in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
St. Joseph's Higher Secondary School Baramulla is a private school located in Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The school has been upgraded to the status of a higher secondary school and has also started online education, the first in the Kashmir valley. St. Josephs School is located in the city of Baramulla. It has around 4,000 students and over 125 staff members.
The Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir or Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JIJK) is an Islamic political party based in the city of Srinagar in the Indian administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is distinct from the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. The organisation's stated position on the Kashmir conflict is that Kashmir is a disputed territory and the issue must be sorted as per UN or through tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and representatives of Kashmir.
In 1989, Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Indian Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was kidnapped by Kashmiri separatist militants in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir. The kidnappers demanded the release of five jailed members of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in exchange for Sayeed's release. The Indian government headed by V. P. Singh of the Janata Dal party, with outside support from the BJP, agreed to the demands and induced the state government to release the jailed militants. In 2004, the JKLF admitted to having carried out the kidnapping, and the court case is ongoing. In July 2022, Rubaiya identified Yasin Malik, one of the key leaders of JKLF at that time, as one of her kidnappers.
The Gawkadal massacre was named after the Gawkadal bridge in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, where, on 21 January 1990, the Indian paramilitary troops of the Central Reserve Police Force opened fire on a group of Kashmiri protesters in what has been described by some authors as "the worst massacre in Kashmiri history". Between 50 and 100 people were killed, some from being shot and others from drowning. The massacre happened two days after the Government of India appointed Jagmohan as the Governor for a second time in a bid to control the mass protests by Kashmiris.
Jammu Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party is a separatist political party in Jammu Kashmir founded by its chairman, Hashim Qureshi in 1994.
Muhammad Ahsan Dar is a Kashmiri Islamist militant separatist leader from Jammu and Kashmir. He was the founder of an Islamist militant group called Ansarul Islam in mid-1980s, which later became the core of Hizbul Mujahideen. Formed in September 1989, Hizbul Mujahideen was an umbrella group of a dozen Islamist groups in the Kashmir Valley and was sponsored by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and Jamaat-e-Islami. Ahsan Dar served as the head of the united group for a few years, but was marginalised the Jamaat-e-Islami patron Syed Salahuddin. He later founded a new group called Muslim Mujahideen in 1992, which operated for a few years. It was eventually neutralised by Hizbul Mujahideen and Indian security forces, and Ahsan Dar retired from militancy.
Amanullah Khan was the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a Kashmiri militant activist group that advocates independence for the entire Kashmir region. Khan's JKLF initiated the ongoing armed insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir with backing from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, which lasted until Pakistan dropped its support of secular Kashmiri separatists in favour of pro-Pakistan Islamist groups, such as the Hizbul Mujahideen. In 1994, the JKLF in the Kashmir Valley, under the leadership of Yasin Malik, renounced militancy in favour of a political struggle. Amanullah Khan disagreed with the strategy, causing a split in the JKLF.
On 30 January 1971, an Indian Airlines domestic Fokker F27, also named "Ganga", flying from Srinagar Airport to the Jammu-Satwari Airport, was hijacked by two Kashmiri separatists belonging to the National Liberation Front. The hijackers were Hashim Qureshi and his cousin Ashraf Qureshi. The aircraft was flown to Lahore Airport in Pakistan where the passengers and the crew were released and the aircraft was burnt down.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, or Pandits, is their early-1990 migration, or flight, from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir following rising violence in an insurgency. Of a total Pandit population of 120,000–140,000 some 90,000–100,000 left the valley or felt compelled to leave by the middle of 1990, by which time about 30–80 of them are said to have been killed by militants.
Masarat Alam Bhat is a Kashmiri Islamist activist and a political separatist leader of Jammu and Kashmir. He is currently serving as the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Muslim League, and also serves as the interim chairman of Geelani faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Farooq Ahmed Dar known by his nom de guerre Bitta Karate, is a Kashmiri Terrorist, who currently serves as the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (R) in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India.
The Plebiscite Front in Azad Kashmir, also called Mahaz-i-Raishumari, was founded by Amanullah Khan in collaboration with Abdul Khaliq Ansari and Maqbool Bhat in 1965. The organisation had an unofficial armed wing called National Liberation Front, which carried out sabotage activities in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the hijacking of Ganga. Amanullah Khan later moved to England, where he revived the National Liberation Front under the new name Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
Shabir Choudhry is a British national and a Kashmiri leader, rights and peace activist, politician, academician and writer. He helped form the Kashmir Youth Movement in 1973, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in 1976 and later on the Kashmir National Party in 2008. He resigned from each of these after being discouraged or opposed to the direction they were headed. He went to United Kingdom in 1966 where he continues his struggle against forces of occupation, terrorism, extremism and religious intolerance in Azad Kashmir and Kashmir through regular statements, articles, press releases, conference and videos. He is a British national as well as a Pakistani/Kashmiri national.
