Srinagar’s Kashmir Law college has decided to cut off ties with its Principal Sheikh Showkat who has often taken pro-Pakistan stances. The college management has reportedly sacked Showkat and has already started the process for a new appointment in his place.
As reported by The New Indian, Showkat has often toed the separatist line in Kashmir’s political sphere while backing Pakistan-sponsored separatist organisations. Showkat made news in 2016 when he presided over a convention titled ‘Azadi: The Only Way’ alongside tendentious personalities like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Arundhati Roy, Prof. SAR Geelani and others. After participating in this function which was held at the Press Club of India in Delhi, Shaukat was booked under sedition charges for delivering an anti-India speech at the event.
While Anti-India slogans were raised at the convention, Delhi Police had registered an FIR under Sections 124 A (sedition), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 149 (unlawful assembly) against the speakers in connection with organizing such an event in the heart of the national capital.
As per the reports, the college administration has started a private investigation for finding the doubtful activities of Showkat in the past who maintained undercover relations with separatists and terrorist networks active in the valley. Showkat was employed to create false narratives over the fate of Jammu and Kashmir as a part of India and hence provided intellectual legitimacy to the armed conflicts of the secessionists against the Indian state.
While Sheikh Showkat did all of this being on the payroll of the Indian state, he received about Rs 5.1 crores as salary and another Rs 3.3 crores as additional allowances under different heads. Apart from this, he enjoys a pension of more than Rs 1 lakh every month. A public authority that has not been identified yet, has taken the investigation against Showkat for invoking relevant provisions of pension-related laws for his terror links. The authority is finding conclusive evidence to establish the Principal as a covert ideologue of secessionist and terrorist networks for stifling his further state allowances.
Sheikh Showkat’s snide remarks against the Indian Prime Minister
In 2014, when Narendra Modi visited Srinagar after becoming assuming the office, Showkat wrote in an article, “After a gap of several decades, I was at the airport road on the arrival of an Indian Prime Minister. I was not there to welcome the prime minister but to hire a labourer so that I could avail myself of the benefit of his services for some work in my kitchen garden. Once I settled wages with a Bihari labourer, CRPF men on the scene didn’t allow him to accompany me.”
In the same article, he alleged that migrant labourers in Jammu and Kashmir were forcefully taken into a bus to attend Narendra Modi’s rally. “In view of the hostile attitude of locals, the easiest way to ensure an audience at Modi’s rally was to force the migrant labourers to attend it,” he wrote.
The sacking of separatist Sheikh Showkat comes days after the Jammu and Kashmir administration fired five government officials from various departments whose links with separatist and terror organisations in the valley were found.
