Hizb leaders look to patch up with Musa

NEWDELHI: Top leaders of the Hizbul Mujahideen are trying a patch-up with their former “Kashmir commander” Zakir Rashid Bhat who severed ties with the militant group a few days ago, intelligence agencies have said. Bhat, better known by his alias Musa, released audio messages 10 days ago announcing his exit after the leadership criticised him for threatening to behead Hurriyat leaders for saying the “separatist movement” in the Valley was political and not religious in nature.

The goal of militants and separatists should be to establish Islamic rule, the 23-year-old engineering dropout had said.

The Kashmiri militant group is yet to name his successor.

Jammu and Kashmir’s Intelligence agencies see the delay as a sign of his subordinates’ reluctance to take Bhat’s position, which would amount to picking sides in a feud between their former commander and senior leadership.

Sources in intelligence say Bhat’s departure was not because of ideological differences, as claimed by him. He and the Pakistan-based leadership didn’t agree on the group’s activities in the Valley. “Inputs suggest that orders passed on to Zakir (Bhat) and his team were not implementable and strategies formulated by him were not entirely acceptable to Pakistan-based leaders,” a security official in Kashmir said.