I Ahmad Wani
ہے یہ کواکب کچھ نظر آتے ہیں کچھ
دیتے ہیں دھوکا یہ بازی گر کھلا
(Hain Yeh Kawaakib Kuch Nazar Aate Hain Kuch
Dete Hain Dhoka Yeh Baazigar Khula)
In the marble-walled Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on 28 March 2026, Sajad Gani Lone delivered one of the most raw and emotionally charged speeches of the session. The house was debating the recent assassination attempt on National Conference patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah. Lone condemned the attack but quickly turned personal. “Whenever there is an attempt or an assassination, our pain becomes fresh,” he said. “That entire film plays back again.” Then came the line that silenced the chamber: “However, when I stand here in the Legislative Assembly, I also confront my father a little bit.”
The reference was unmistakable. On 21 May 2002, at Eidgah Srinagar, two young militants gunned down his father, Abdul Ghani Lone, in broad daylight. Lone was addressing a large gathering to mark the twelfth death anniversary of the tallest and highly venerated religious leader of Kashmir, Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq. The assassins fired, hurled grenades, and vanished into the crowd. The son was denied security to attend the funeral. Decades later, the wound still bleeds. Security, Lone suggested, has often been weaponised for political ends in Kashmir.
This moment was not mere nostalgia. It was a painful reminder of how Kashmir’s political sky is littered with stars — some bright and visible, others deceptive illusions created by clever magicians of power.
Go back to 21 May 1990. Three young men entered Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq’s residence in Nigeen, Srinagar, and shot the moderate religious leader dead. Mirwaiz Farooq had refused to accept armed struggle as the only path to “freedom.” Initial propaganda blamed Indian security forces. His funeral procession through Hawal turned tragic when CRPF personnel opened fire on mourners, killing dozens in what became known as the Hawal massacre. Investigations later pointed to Hizbul Mujahideen commanders who ordered the killing because Farooq was seen as too conciliatory.
His teenage son, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, barely 17-19 years old, was thrust into the spotlight as the new Mirwaiz and head of the Awami Action Committee. The valley was then descending into chaos. Rival militant factions — JKLF supporters dreaming of independence and pro-Pakistan groups like Hizbul Mujahideen — were locked in deadly internecine battles. Those favouring true independence were systematically silenced.
Pakistan’s handlers needed order amid the bloodshed. They wanted a respectable political umbrella to shield armed groups, coordinate efforts, and present a unified face internationally. Senior politicians Abdul Ghani Lone and Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat played key roles in approaching Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others. Advocate Zafar Shah helped draft the framework. On 31 July 1993, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was formally launched. It was sold as a resistance front for self-determination. In practice, it provided political cover for militants at the peak of the insurgency.
The young Mirwaiz was initially reluctant. Intense pressure from elders, militants, and various quarters forced him into the role. Geelani’s Jamaat-e-Islami, backed by the most organised and fanatical armed wing HizbulMujahideen, was never eager to cede ground. Yet the alliance was forged. Kashmir’s political constellations shifted once again — some inherited through blood and reverence, others shaped by cold calculation.
Fast-forward to the new generation. Sajad Gani Lone chose a different orbit. He publicly denounced the separatist path his father had walked. He criticised Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s dominance, even once linking him directly to his father’s killing. Before the 2014 assembly elections, he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The photograph became a campaign staple; Delhi journalists dubbed it the “much-publicised meeting.”
A local worker from Anantnag, Zafar Salati, stood on a stage in Kupwara and declared with theatrical flair that if Manmohan Singh could become Prime Minister twice without contesting elections and Narendra Modi could storm Delhi, then Sajad becoming Chief Minister was hardly a miracle. Sajad won two seats and entered the PDP-BJP coalition government as a minister on the BJP quota. The party that once viewed the Lones with suspicion celebrated it as the “end of separatism in the Lone family.”
Kashmiri families, however, are rarely simple. Like old orchards divided by mud walls yet rooted in the same soil, the Lones split the inheritance. While Sajad embraced mainstream politics, his brother Bilal remained closer to the old separatist line. The father’s political legacy — and property at Sanatnagar — was divided equally. In recent times, Bilal has been seen moving through Kupwara and Handwara, seeking a foothold in constituencies once dominated by the family, as pure separatist politics finds fewer and fewer takers in the valley.
Sajad, ever the nimble performer, has continued to adapt. After the abrogation of Article 370, he turned vocal against the Centre and the Union Territory arrangement. He forged ties with the Justice and Development Front, a new mainstream face linked to Jamaat-e-Islami circles. The man who once questioned Geelani now navigates alliances with ideological descendants of the same ecosystem that claimed his father. The public watches this choreography with a mix of weary amusement and quiet fatigue.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq presents a study in stillness. The reluctant young man of 1993 has never left the Hurriyat chair. He enjoys the dual status of chief cleric and separatist figurehead without ever contesting an election. He speaks eloquently of dialogue and his father’s moderate vision but has never publicly named or confronted the hardliners responsible for the 1990 assassination. As one veteran Anantnag journalist observed sharply, “He has the cake and he eats it too.” Why abandon the separatist tag when it still commands pulpits, respect in certain circles, and open doors on multiple sides?
The satire of Kashmir’s politics writes itself. Sajad Lone changes alliances with the seasons — pragmatic, survivalist, always reading the wind. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq remains frozen in time, the eternal chairman, protected by the halo of inherited reverence. Both men inherited profound personal tragedy. One transformed it into flexible political capital. The other preserved it as a static shield. Meanwhile, ordinary Kashmiris — shopkeepers in Lal Chowk, apple growers in Shopian, mothers queuing for cooking gas or struggling with uncertain electricity — continue to pay the price in daily uncertainty and fading hope to live in peaceful atmosphere.
Kashmir’s leaders have long lived within their own insulated circles of status, influence, safe arrangements, and media access. Some still dream of the chief minister’s chair. Others have stopped dreaming altogether, convinced they are already larger than any constitutional office. The rest of us are left gazing at the night sky, wondering which stars are genuine and which are clever reflections designed to deceive.
Old wounds refuse to heal because too many benefit from keeping them raw. Every assassination attempt, every emotional assembly speech, every anniversary on 21 May adds another verse to the same tragic poem. Sajad Lone confronts his father’s memory in the Assembly. Mirwaiz Umar pays ritual tributes without confronting uncomfortable truths. The guns may have fallen silent in many places, but the choreography of power and selective memory continues unchanged.
On this complex political canvas of Jammu and Kashmir, the stars keep shifting positions. Some glow brighter by aligning with the new realities. Others dim because they refuse to move. A few, like Abdul Ghani Lone and Mirwaiz Farooq before them, were extinguished for daring to question the dominant script. The ordinary people keep looking upward, hoping that one day the sky will stop its tricks and reveal something honest.
Until that day arrives, the poem will keep repeating—hain kawaakib kuch nazar aate hain kuch ( Even the stars we see may not be what they seem.)—these stars, some visible, some not, while the darkness between them grows heavier with each passing year. Kashmir still waits for a leader who truly understands the everyday struggles of its people, not just their slogans. In the post-abrogation era, there is at least a shifting ground where merit, not mythology, has the chance to shape political relevance. The echoes of the past have not faded. Nevertheless, the fragile yet tangible peace has opened space for something new. The question now is whether a fresh leadership can rise to replace the old guard—too long defined by deception, decay, and disconnect—or whether the same shadows will continue masquerading as stars.
