Thaindian News

Jammu, Aug 18 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Wednesday lashed out at separatist leader Syeda Asiya Andrabi for trying to send her son abroad for studies while asking students in the valley to “sacrifice their studies for liberation of Kashmir”.
Andrabi, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief whose son had applied for a passport to study in Malaysia, has been saying that the youth in the valley should give up their studies and make “sacrifices for the movement for liberation of Kashmir”.

Abdullah accused the leader of “saying one thing and practising quite the other”.

“It shows how these separatist leaders are promoting their sons’ education, while asking others to shun schools and colleges,” the chief minister, who was on a day’s visit to Jammu, told reporters here.

The schools and colleges in the Kashmir Valley are shut now for more than two months and the students have been forced to stay away from their schools because of stone- throwing and violent clashes that have left 59 people dead, with some victims being as young as nine years old.

Abdullah said that an affidavit given in the court on behalf of Andrabi’s son said “that he wanted to study in Malaysia and that’s why he needed a passport”.

Anrabi’s husband is in jail for the past 17 years on terror charges.

Media reports said that Andrabi’s son Muhammad Bin Qasim had got admission into an educational institution in Malaysia.

Andrabi, however, Tuesday dismissed as “malicious propaganda” media reports that her 18-year-old son wanted to study abroad.

“It is malicious propaganda against me since enemies of our freedom struggle could say nothing else to malign my person,” Andrabi told IANS.

The chief of the women’s separatist group said she had been invited by the Pakistan government in January this year and in order to undertake the visit, she had applied for a passport but her request was rejected by the Indian authorities.

“Since under the Islamic law, a woman cannot undertake any travel without being accompanied by her father, brother, husband, a major son or a close male relative, my son Muhammad bin Qasim applied for a passport as well,” she said.