Mirwaiz hoping to meet his divided clan in Pak

Mirwaiz hoping to meet his divided clan in Pak
TARIQ BHA

SRINAGAR, JAN 17: For Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the impending visit to Pakistan is going to be more than a political mission. The young Mirwaiz (head priest) is, in fact, looking forward to a reunion with his extended family members who were exiled after the National Conference ratified the accession treaty in 1948.

``Yes, I am looking forward to meeting my relatives in Pakistan. My aunt, cousions and other relatives are there,'' the Mirwaiz said.

At least half of his clan is scattered in Pakistan -- from Muzafferabad to Lahore. If the visit does materliase, Farooq will be the first member of thedivided clan to set foot in Pakistan after the Line of Control split Kashmir.

So far, only Moulvi Muhammad Ahmed, son of the late Moulvi Muhammad Yousf Shah, Umar's paternal grand uncle, has visited Kashmir twice, that too before militancy started. Shah was the Mirwaiz of Kashmir when the nation was partitioned. He was also the head of the Muslim Conference which had opposed Sheikh Abdullah for ratifying the accession treaty signed by Maharaja Hari Singh.

In fact, the present National Conference is a splinter group of the then Muslim Conference floated by Sheikh Abdullah. Soon after the accession,the then Mirwaiz migrated to Pakistan occupied Kashmir, along withseveral of his relatives and hundreds of his supporters. He settled inMuzafferabad, PoK, but family members later moved to Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore.

Moulvi Yusuf Shah, if fact, is highly revered in Kashmir for his contribution to education in the state and is renowned for the only Kashmiri commentary on the Quran -- Bayan-ul-Quran -- which he wrote over a period of time. The commentary was handed over to Umar's late father Moulvi Muhammed Farooq at the Wagah border in Amritsar in the mid-60s, for mass circulation in Kashmir. The Indian government had denied him permission to visit Kashmir, so the handover took place at the Indo-Pak border at Wagah.