Shaheed Maqbool Bhut

Hero of Kashmiri Freedom Fight

(Anniversary 11 February)

Dr Sajid Khakwani

(drsajidkhakwani@gmail.com)        

Freedom and migration are inter relevant realities. Freedom is a pattern of all holly prophets lives, No prophet of Allah The Almighty accepted the sovereignty of other than Allah. For the sake of freedom all the prophets committed migration and of course migration is one of the pioneer activity of freedom. Since Madina Tayyaba to the creation of Pakistan, ever in the history, migration is the very much first step of the nations toward get the freedom. Specially Hazrat Mosa's struggle was all about the freedom of his own nation. His first demand was freedom from Firon. He had a long tension with Firon and all of this was a freedom fight. Firon and his nation were fell in seven torments one by one, every time Firon promised to grant the freedom subject to removal of torment. Torment removed but Firon did not fulfill his promises. This is an identity of firon to not fulfill the promises. These are historical realities to learn the lesions.

Movement of freedom of Kashmir is just like a movement which is run by the faith and blood of Kashmiri Muslims. It is, actually, movement of completion of Pakistan in frame of special reference of 14th August 1947. Pakistani  and Kashmir peoples have a very strong bonds of faith on Allah The Almighty and faith on the Last prophet( Peace be upon him), due to these bonds Pakistanis and Kashmir are ever one even in the past , in the present and in the future as well. In spite of  the  role of political & military leadership of Pakistan, the Pakistanis still believe the statement of Qauid-i-Azam that the Kashmir is vein of life for Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Very soon, behind the rising of Sun, Kashmir will be the very important part of Pakistan In Sha Allah. Maqbool Bhutt is a brilliant character of this movement.

Maqbool Bhutt was born on 18 February 1938 to a peasant family in Trahagam village Tehsil kupwara, district Kupwara. His father was Ghulam Qadar Bhutt. His mother died when Maqbool Bhutt was 11 years old pupil in the village’s primary school. Telling this story on 12 April 1972 from Prison Maqbool Bhutt wrote:

It was 1945 or 1946 when I was eight or nine year old child. At this time Kashmir was ruled by the Dogra Family. In a year most of the crops were destroyed by the bad weather. Therefore the production was next to nothing. Because of the low production the peasants were not able to provide the jagirdar as much anaj; grains as they used to provide previously. On this the Kardars of Jagirdar started harassing and beating up the peasants in the entire region. They raided the houses and grain stores of the poor peasants and lashed them. But what did they have to give for Jagirdar? When the required amount of grains could not be collected the Jagirdar himself came to our village in his motorcar. This was the first time that a motorcar came to our village and we were astonished to see it. The peasants of our village got together and pleaded before the jagirdar for some concessions. They told him in details the reasons for low production. But he was not prepared to believe the peasants. He was persistent that, what come may, even if the children of peasants had to go hungry, his share of grains must be arranged. He also strongly advised his agents, kardars to complete the collection at any cost. These Kardars knew well that peasants did not have anything left to give to Jagirdar but how could they deviate from his orders? At the exact point when Jagirdar was about to get in his car after issuing the instructions, all the village children were told to lie down in front of the jagirdar’s motorcar. The Kardars were part of this plan. Therefore when hundreds of children laid themselves down in front of the jagirdar’s car he was pleaded either to stop the further collection of grains or crush these starved and naked children under his car. I was also amongst these children and remember till this day that great big hue and cry. The children as well as elders, all were crying knowing that once the jagirdar left the village without writing off the further collections, the peasants will have to face the qiyamat; the day of judgment. At last the jagirdar seeing the hue and cry of the naked and hunger worn yellowish children agreed to make some concessions. Not too long after this incident Maqbool Bhutt found himself at the centre of another successful action against the institutionalized inequality. While the land was granted to the tiller soon after the rise of Sheikh Abdullah to power in 1949, many practices of inequality carried on. One of the most explicit manifestations of the class and status based inequalities was observed in the schools’ annual award ceremonies. Here the relatively rich children and their parents were used to sit on one side and those of poor background on the other. One year when Maqbool Bhutt was also amongst the high achiever he refused to receive the award unless the seating arrangements were changed. He said that all the children should sit together on one side and all the parents on the other. As a result the suggestion was accepted and since then was made norm in this village school. While still in school Maqbool Bhutt also successfully led the campaign for promoting this school from primary to secondary status.

Further Education After completing his secondary school certificate, Maqbool Butt moved on to St. Joseph College in Baramula. This was a private missionary college. Here he gained his first degree (BA) in history and political science. The journey on that road to great sacrifice for Maqbool Butt was started while still a student at St. Joseph College First and foremost problem before Maqbool Butt in Pakistan was to continue his education and at the same time find a job to meet the expenses. For with out that “it was hard to live in Pakistan’. Therefore, he joined ’Injam’, a weekly magazine, as sub-editor and started his working life as a journalist. He did  MA (from Pehswar university) in Urdu literature and worked with ‘Anjam. Meanwhile his marriage was arranged by his uncle with a Kashmiri woman Raja Begum in 1961. He had two sons from this wife, Javed Maqbool born in 1962 and Shaukat Maqbool in 1964. In 1966 he married to a school teacher Zakra Begum and had a daughter Lubna Maqbool from her. 

On 14 September 1966, Maqbool was the part of Militants who ambushed Indian Security Forces. One Militant "Aurangzeb" was killed. Also dead was Amar Chand, an Inspector of the local Crime Branch CID. Maqbool Bhat and Kala Khan were arrested for murder. As, Bhat was also involved in the shootout, and was found guilty and sentenced to death. In 1968, Bhat, along with two others, managed to dig a tunnel under the Srinagar prison, and escaped to Pakistan, where they were briefly arrested.

In 1971, Indian authorities claimed that Bhat masterminded the hijacking of an Passenger Airline to Lahore, and the hijackers declared affiliation with the leadership of Bhat. The Pakistani authorities then arrested Bhat and a number of others. He was released in 1974, and two years later, Bhat sneaked into India where he was soon captured.

His earlier death sentence was still valid, and he petitioned to the President of India Giyani Zail Singh for clemency on the grounds of an unfair trial. On February 6, 1984, JKLF members murdered the Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre, in Birmingham, England. One of their demands was the release of Bhat. After this, his petition for clemency was rejected, and Bhat was executed in the Tihar Jail in New Delhi on February 11, 1984

He was one Maqbool Bhutt who was hanged, now the third generation is there in Kashmir fighting against Indian Armies. Freedom of Kashmir was a dream of Maqbool Bhutt and very soon it is coming to be a reality. Kashmir’s destination of freedom is very near by and kashmir will be an important part of Pakistan.   No UNO or any world super power is subject to free Kashmir but force of faith is only power witch has broken USSR, threatened USA and will must free Kashmir In Sha Allah.