1. Maqbool Bhat was a Kashmiri separatist leader, who went to Pakistan and founded the National Liberation Front, which was a precursor to the present day Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.
25 Facts About Maqbool Bhat
1. 2.
Maqbool Bhat is called the "father of the Nation of Kashmir" Baba-e-Qaum by the locals.
3.
Maqbool Bhat was arrested and sentenced to a double death sentence.
4.
Maqbool Bhat was hanged on 11 February 1984 in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
5.
Muhammad Maqbool Bhat was born on 18 February 1938 in the Trehgam village of the Kupwara district in the Kashmir Valley of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu in British India into a Kashmiri Muslim family.
6.
Maqbool Bhat's mother died when Maqbool was 11 years old, and his father remarried.
7.
The student activists of the Plebiscite Front were targeted at this time, causing Maqbool Bhat to leave for Pakistan in August 1958.
8.
Maqbool Bhat joined the Peshawar University, studying for an MA Urdu Literature in Peshawar, Pakistan He worked for some time as a journalist for the local newspaper Anjaam.
9.
In 1961, Maqbool Bhat contested in the 'Basic Democracy' elections introduced by President Ayub Khan's military regime, and won the Kashmiri diaspora seat from Peshawar.
10.
Maqbool Bhat was appointed as the publicity secretary, owing to his journalistic background.
11.
Amanullah Khan and Maqbool Bhat wanted to set up an armed wing for the Plebiscite Front, but the proposal did not get the majority support in the Plebiscite Front.
12.
However, in September 1966, Maqbool Bhat's group was compromised near Srinagar.
13.
Maqbool Bhat's arrest brought the group's activities into the open, and sharply divided the Plebiscite Front.
14.
Long after their release, Maqbool Bhat was still suspected of being a double agent.
15.
Hashim Qureshi, a Srinagar resident who went to Peshawar on family business in 1969, met Maqbool Bhat and got inducted into the NLF.
16.
Maqbool Bhat was given an ideological education and lessons in guerrilla tactics in Rawalpindi.
17.
Maqbool Bhat negotiated his way out by claiming to help find other conspirators that were allegedly in the Indian territory, sought an appointment in the Border Security Force to provide such help.
18.
Maqbool Bhat sent Qureshi replacement equipment for the hijacking, but it fell into the hands of a double agent, who then turned it over to the Indian authorities.
19.
Maqbool Bhat was released after protests broke out in Gilgit.
20.
Maqbool Bhat was encouraged by the student protests against the 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord, by which Sheikh Abdullah surrendered his demand and joined Indian system.
21.
Several attempts were made by different Kashmiri groups for the release of Maqbool Bhat, including the hijacking of an Indian plane by Abdul Hameed Diwani in 1976 and an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Delhi conference hall of Non Alignment Movement in 1981.
22.
Maqbool Bhat was executed in the Tihar Jail in New Delhi on 11 February 1984, amidst heavy security.
23.
Maqbool Bhat was described as calm and composed, who did not "utter any word as he was being taken to the gallows".
24.
Maqbool Bhat's body was buried within the Tihar Jail premises against his wishes.
25.
Sporadic incidents of protest against Maqbool Bhat's execution were reported in the newspapers, which were described as "tremors of tension".