By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – Amanullah Khan, who died on Tuesday after a protracted illness at the age of 85 at a Rawalpindi hospital, was a prominent figure in the Kashmir region’s decades-old pro-independence movement.
His funeral was held at Rawalpindi’s historical Liaquat Park and he was buried in the city of Gilgit near the Chinese border in accordance with his will.
Khan had called for a sovereign state of Kashmir — a stand that suited neither India nor Pakistan. Nevertheless, he was a source of inspiration for numerous Kashmiris, especially among the young.
Born in 1931 in a remote village in Pakistan’s Astore district some 100 kilometers from Gilgit, Khan’s family moved to the Kashmir Valley in 1935 (when it was still united), where he completed his primary and secondary education.
Amid the political turmoil that followed controversial elections held in Jammu Kashmir (Indian-held Kashmir) in 1951, Khan crossed the Line-of-Control — a theoretical border that partitioned the valley following the 1948 Indo-Pakistan war — and settled in Pakistan.
He briefly lived in Lahore and Peshawar, finally settling in the southern port city of Karachi, where he finished his university education and earned a degree in law.
Khan’s political career began in 1963, when he and several colleagues founded the “Kashmir Independence Committee”, which advocated the “complete independence of both parts of Kashmir”.
This position challenged a 1948 UN resolution that called for holding a popular referendum in which Kashmiris could vote to either join Pakistan or India.
“Kashmir baney ga khudmukhtaar” — or “Kashmir will be sovereign” — was a slogan frequently used by Khan, which served to inspire young people in both parts of the disputed region.
But the popular slogan, which contravened Pakistan’s longtime stand on Kashmir, ended up landing him in jail on several occasions, especially in the period from 1970 to 1972.
He was also accused of involvement in an Indian Airlines plane hijacking by a pair of Kashmiri separatists who directed the plane to Lahore, where they were arrested by Pakistani security forces.
Khan married in 1973 at the age of 39. Three years later, he traveled to the U.K., where in 1977 he founded Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
The party suffered a rift in 1995 when the JKLF’s chairman in Jammu Kashmir publicly joined the armed struggle against Indian rule — a move Khan refused to accept.
The party reunited in 2012, however, when the armed struggle turned into a vast political movement.
In 1992, Khan and his supporters made two separate bids to break the Line-of-Control in a bid to draw international attention to his calls for the valley’s reunification. Both attempts, however, were ultimately twarted by Pakistani security forces.
A firm believer in the total independence of Kashmir, Khan was always outspoken in his views. While often expressing his respect for Pakistan, he never compromised on his call for a sovereign state of Kashmir.
“You may disagree with his [Khan’s] ideology, but you cannot deny his commitment and dedication to his cause,” Tariq Naqash, a Muzaffarabad-based Kashmiri analyst told Anadolu Agency.
“He put his whole life into the struggle,” Naqash said.
