Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference on Monday alleged that senior party leader and influential Shia cleric Imran Ansari was “humiliated” by the administration during a meeting chaired by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Muharram arrangements.
The party said Jammu and Kashmir is administered in a “new hybrid model”, in which some bureaucrats have donned the hats of politicians and these politico-bureaucrat “rogue variant” of the bureaucracy feel that it is their divine duty to humiliate the political class.
“JKPC strongly condemns the behaviour displayed by the state administration towards Imran Ansari, an eminent religious leader of the Shia community. We express deep concern over this dangerous precedent being set by the administration. It started the humiliation of political leaders, and now they are moving on into the domain of humiliating religious leaders,” a spokesman of the party said.
He said it certainly does not behove the head of the state administration, even if “he is regrettably selected and not elected”, to preside over and “voluntarily facilitate the humiliation of a religious leader, who was invited cordially.”
According to sources close to Ansari, the Shia leader had taken exception to the administration setting a cap of only 100 persons for taking part in the Muharram processions on traditional routes in Srinagar, which have been banned for the past three decades.
Ansari had highlighted that while the entire administration and locals of Kashmir were welcoming the lakhs of Amarnath pilgrims, there was no justification for setting the limit on the number of persons in the Muharram procession, the sources said.
They said a senior bureaucrat, who was present in the meeting, objected to Ansari hinting at sectarian discrimination by the administration which led to exchange of words between the two. Ansari later walked out of the meeting, the sources said.
When contacted, Ansari said it pained him to see “this daily dose of humiliation for Kashmiris”.
“I don’t understand whether these are politicians or bureaucrats. I challenge them to talk in this tone to any person in public life in the rest of the country. Are we second-class citizens that bureaucrats have been given a license to humiliate? The LG is a politician who has been selected by the central government; he is not elected. I hope he keeps this in mind. And I would love to see whether he would appreciate similar behaviour by a bureaucrat in his home state, UP,” Ansari added.
