By Sarwar Kashani, IANS,
Srinagar : The road to romance runs outside the state for many of Jammu and Kashmir’s political elite — be it Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, his father Farooq or separatists Yaseen Malik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Sajjad Lone.
Malik, 42, the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief, is the latest to join the list. The model-turned-militant-turned-politician returned from Pakistan this week with his 28-year-old bride Mashaal Mullick, an artist who has studied at the London School of Economics and is daughter of the late Pakistani economist M.A. Hussain Mullick.
The JKLF chief and Mashaal had an austere nikaah in Islamabad in January this year but a visa hitch and Malik’s subsequent arrests delayed the bride’s arrival to her marital home here.
When she finally arrived at Malik’s home in Maisuma locality Sunday, hundreds of JKLF supporters — and news photographers as well — gathered to greet her.
Way back in the 1960s, former chief minister and now union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah, a trained physician, played out the doctor-nurse romance when he married Molly, a British nurse.
Despite her husband and family’s high visibility, Molly Abdullah is rarely seen with her husband at any official function and keeps a low profile in Britain where she stays.
Their son Omar also found love outside the state, where outsiders are not allowed to buy property. He married Payal Singh, daughter of a retired army officer from Delhi. The couple quietly celebrated their 15th marriage anniversary Sep 1.
The alliance was accepted by the family, quite unlike the furore when his sister Sara married Sachin Pilot, the late Congress leader Rajesh Pilot’s son.
Sara and Sachin tied the knot at a quiet ceremony, which was boycotted by the Abdullahs, in Delhi. Even Omar Abdullah, it is widely known, had objected to his sister marrying Sachin.
But that is in the past – Sachin and Abdullah junior now share a close relationship.
The other side of Kashmir’s political divide has similar love stories to tell.
Sajjad Gani Lone, son of slain Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Gani Lone, married Asma Khan, daughter of Pakistan-based separatist leader Amanullah Khan. Khan is the chief of his own faction of the JKLF.
Sajjad and Asma married in 2002 in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. They have two sons but the tough visa regime has forced the couple to live separately. Asma has been allowed to visit the valley only once after her marriage though she is legally a citizen of Jammu and Kashmir, living in the Pakistani part of the state, which India claims is part of its territory.
Then there is Hurriyat Conference chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who married US citizen of Kashmiri-origin Sheeba Masoodi in 2002. Sheeba is the youngest daughter of Sibtain Masoodi, a Kashmiri doctor who immigrated to the US in 1970. The family still has a house in Srinagar.
Like Lone, the Mirwaiz also had to battle difficulties in staying with his spouse in Kashmir. Sheeba is also a citizen of Kashmir but has been given only a temporary visa to stay in Kashmir.
She has taken the matter to a court with the plea that her parents were Indian citizens and that a woman married to a Kashmiri is automatically entitled to become a citizen of the state.
The court has asked the government to put on hold the deportation proceedings initiated against the Mirwaiz’s wife.
There are others too.
Former militant commander Aftab Hilali alias Shahid-ul-Islam, now a senior Hurriyat leader, is married to an Arab woman Habib, who is presently in the US.
Hashim Qureshi, who was accused of hijacking an Indian Airlines plane in 1971, and is now chief of the Democratic Liberation Party (DLP), is married to Zebu-un-Nisa, a Dutch citizen born in Peshawar.