Engineer Rashid: The Kashmiri politician whose return from jail ruffled feathers

As Indian-administered Kashmir ready for meeting elections earlier this month, an area MP returned residence from a Delhi jail to marketing campaign for his candidates. Who’s he and why does his return matter to the area’s politics? Auqib Javeed experiences from Srinagar.

Sheikh Abdul Rashid, who had been in jail since Article 370 was abrogated in 2019, was granted interim bail earlier this month on terror funding expenses he denies.

The 57-year-old, who’s popularly often called Engineer Rashid, has urged individuals to vote for his candidates as a substitute of regional or nationwide events. His Awami Ittehad Get together has fielded candidates on greater than three dozen seats.

The high-stakes meeting elections are the primary for the reason that area’s autonomy was revoked in 2019. With 873 candidates throughout 97 constituencies within the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-majority Jammu, the elections have been described by federal officers as a proof of normalcy in a area lengthy stricken by insurgency. The third and final part of the polls might be held on Tuesday and votes might be counted on 8 October.

Kashmir’s politics, dominated by mainstream events pledging allegiance to India, has had a historical past of people and teams in search of separation from the nation or enhanced autonomy for Kashmir, with a few of them supporting an armed motion to realize that.

Some separatist teams previously have additionally backed Pakistan’s position in Kashmir. India and Pakistan each declare Kashmir in full, however management solely elements of it.

However this meeting election has seen participation of many former separatist leaders as nicely.

Rashid has chosen to be a part of the democratic course of however has been vocal towards what he calls Delhi’s “heavy-handed” rule in Kashmir.

He’s recognized for his fiery speeches, and main protests in unconventional methods towards alleged authorities excesses, typically irking authorities.

He made waves in June when he defeated regional political heavyweight Omar Abdullah in parliamentary elections. Whereas he was lodged in jail, his sons led an emotionally charged and profitable marketing campaign on his behalf.

However this time he is ready to communicate to voters straight and he has additionally well used social media to amplify his messages.

Inside hours of being launched on 11 September, Rashid instructed the media that he was going to struggle towards the elimination of Article 370.

The article allowed the state its personal structure, a separate flag and freedom to make legal guidelines. Overseas affairs, defence and communications remained the protect of the federal authorities.

“We don’t settle for Prime Minister [Narendra Modi’s] choice taken on 5 August [2019],” he stated, referring to the day when the autonomy was abrogated.

He then went reside on Fb, repeating comparable messages. The hour-long speech presently has greater than 2.5m views, 44,000 likes and 25,000 feedback – an unusually excessive quantity for a regional politician.

Rashid’s reputation worries his regional opponents, who’ve termed him a “proxy” of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP).

Two former chief ministers of the state and the heirs of main regional events, Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, have publicly questioned his occasion’s funding and alleged that he was dividing voters to favour the BJP.

He has repeatedly denied the allegations. “If I have been a BJP man, I wouldn’t have spent over 5 years in jail,” he instructed the BBC. “I received [almost] 500,000 votes within the normal elections, how might I be dividing votes?”.

Prof Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a political analyst, stated Rashid’s launch from jail simply days earlier than the elections did give his opponents a pretext to accuse him of collusion with the BJP-run federal authorities in Delhi.

“Regardless of these allegations, his win within the 2024 parliamentary elections from jail has given him an unprecedented credibility within the eyes of the locals,” he stated.

Rashid has additionally labored onerous to fastidiously craft his picture.

Not like the valley’s distinguished leaders who’ve established political lineages, Rashid has managed to ascertain a picture of a “widespread man’s politician” who doesn’t shrink back from taking over authorities.

In 2012, he tried to convey dozens of canine into the state secretariat as a protest towards the federal government’s inaction on the rising canine menace in his constituency, the place quite a few canine chunk incidents had been reported.

“I hope the ministers and forms now perceive the seriousness of the problem,” he said on the time.

However Rashid’s bluntness and candour have additionally landed him in hassle.

In 2015, he hosted a “beef occasion” to protest a ban on the slaughter of cows, thought-about sacred by many Hindus, in a number of states. A day later, members of the BJP, then part of the state’s ruling coalition, assaulted him in the assembly.

A couple of days later, members of a Hindu group outraged by the “beef occasion” attacked him at Delhi’s Press Membership, dousing his face with ink as he protested the lynching of a Kashmiri truck driver accused of cow smuggling in Jammu.

Rashid’s uncommon protests have typically addressed the alleged human rights violations within the Kashmir valley, a cost that the federal authorities denies.

On Worldwide Human Rights Day in 2015, his occasion marched through Srinagar with a cow, a mule, a goat, and a canine, holding placards saying, “Animals have extra rights than individuals in Kashmir.” He and different leaders have been detained.

His relations say they don’t seem to be stunned by his politics as he had a “rebellious nature” since childhood.

“He used to protest towards the human rights violations, presence of navy bunkers, pressured labour by the military,” stated his brother Khurshid Ahmad Sheikh.

In 2008, he resigned from his authorities job as an engineer to contest meeting elections, successful twice in a row as an unbiased candidate.

As soon as elected to the state meeting, he gained recognition throughout Kashmir for protesting towards what he known as the federal government’s “anti-people” insurance policies, analysts say.

“The component of protest makes him standard. He has been a crowd-puller since he entered politics,” stated Noor Mohammad Baba, a political analyst primarily based in Kashmir.

His jail time period has intensified public curiosity in his rallies, he added.

At a current rally, an enthusiastic group of males assembled to take heed to him. A few of them have been curious onlookers hoping to see the person within the information, and a few have been his followers.

Did the allegations of Rashid being a “proxy of Delhi” hassle them?

“Virtually all of the regional events have been in an alliance with the BJP [in the past]. They aren’t able to allege him of complicity with the BJP,” stated Rafiq Ahmad, a businessman. “Individuals need to give Rashid an opportunity and see what he does.”

Rashid spoke and demanded a decision to the Kashmir battle and an finish to using anti-terror legal guidelines to place Kashmiris in jail. Younger males shouted in unison in assist.

Inside minutes, Rashid was on his approach to his subsequent public assembly.