The Honourable Mr. Justice Neelkanth Ganjoo | |
|---|---|
 Last known photo | |
| Judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Neelkanth Ganjoo February 16, 1922 |
| Died | 4 November 1989 Srinagar, India |
Neelkanth Ganjoo (Assassinated on 4 November 1989) was an Indian high court judge based in Srinagar who was shot dead by Islamist-separatist militants.
In the late 1960s, as a sessions court judge, he had presided over the trial of JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat in the murder of police inspector Amar Chand in 1966. In August 1968, [1] he sentenced Bhat and one other to death. [2] This sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1982.
In 1984, after JKLF cadres in Britain murdered diplomat Ravindra Mhatre, [3] Bhat's execution was carried out in Tihar jail. The same year, some militants bombed Ganjoo's house. [4] On 4 November 1989, [5] three militants surrounded Ganjoo as he was in the Hari Singh Street market and shot him dead. [6] near the High Court in Srinagar. [7]
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 UK 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, also spelt Maqbool Butt (1938–1984), was a Kashmiri pro-independence leader who went to Pakistan and founded the resistance group 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.
Hashim Qureshi is a pro-Kashmiri leader and one of the founding members of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and is now the Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party (JKDLP), one of the main Kashmiri political organisations which strives to find a political solution to merge Kashmir with Pakistan through peaceful political activities.
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.
Human rights abuses in Kashmir have been perpetrated by various belligerents in the territories controlled by both India and Pakistan since the two countries' conflict over the region began with their first war in 1947–1948, shortly after the partition of British India. The organized breaches of fundamental human rights in Kashmir are tied to the contested territorial status of the region, over which India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars. More specifically, the issue pertains to abuses committed in Indian-administered Kashmir and in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
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.
Burhan Wani was a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, an Islamist militant organization and insurgent group of the Kashmir conflict. He had become a popular figure amongst the local Kashmiri populace, having done so primarily through a strong social media presence, and was responsible for moulding the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir into a youth-oriented movement. Wani was a militant leader and had reportedly recruited numerous foot-soldiers through his personal efforts.
Farooq Ahmed Dar known by his nom de guerre Bitta Karate, is a Kashmiri-separatist militant, 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).
Qazi Nisar was the Mirwaiz of South Kashmir. He was a founding member of the Muslim United Front (MUF) that contested the rigged 1987 Legislative Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ummat e Islami. He was a vocal advocate of freedom for Kashmiris.