In what could turn out to be a major embarrassment for the Jammu and Kashmir government, a senior PDP MLA offered prayers at the graves of nine militants who were killed in an encounter with security forces early this week. It was in this encounter that Army Majors K P Vinay and Dinesh Raghuraman were also killed.

On Thursday, Tangmarg MLA and ex-Housing minister Ghulam Hassan Mir, a founder-member of ruling coalition partner PDP — and once in the running for the Deputy Chief Minister’s job — offered fateh, special prayers, to grant heaven for the departed on Thursday at the militants’ graves two days after the three-day gun battle.

“I offered fateh in the capacity of being a Muslim. I don’t think there is anything wrong in this,” Mir told The Sunday Express. Mir is the only mainstream politician from the Valley so far to offer fateh in Tangmarg after Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

While it is common for mainstream leaders to blur the line between them and the separatists — Hurriyat, even National Conference and the PDP have called for troop cuts and put alleged human rights violations on top of their agenda — Mir’s act is being seen as “crossing the line.”

Asked about the propriety of his action, Mir said: “Fateh was an incidental thing. I actually went there to meet the families whose houses were destroyed during the encounter. It was not for votes. The place has just 10 houses.”