JKLF chief turns arts lover to watch theatre

Srinagar, Dec 7 (UNI) A Kashmiri theatre festival here had an unexpected guest today as a top separatist leader was seen among the audience appreciating the artists.

In a sign of changing times, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik viewed a performance by artists from Baramulla this evening on the concluding day of the festival.

The artists of the Mehboob Cultural Society, a theatre group based in Baramulla district, enacted a Kashmiri drama titled 'Chal (trap)'. The eleven-day Kashmir Theatre Festival was organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages.

The pro-independence leader watched the drama for the entire one hour and was seen applauding the performance at regular intervals.

Malik had taken up arms in the late 1980s along with Ashfaq Majid Wani, Abdul Hamid Sheikh and Javed Ahmed Mir to form the HAJY group within the JKLF.

He later went on to become the militant commander of the JKLF after the killing of Wani and Sheikh by the security forces.

Malik, however, renounced gun and declared unilateral ceasefire in 1994 to launch a ''non-violent movement for independence of Jammu and Kashmir''.

UNI AG MSJ RAI2023