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There is hardly any trace of the previous day’s heavy snowfall in the lane that leads to Masarat Alam’s house in Zainadar Mohalla in Habbakadal area of the old city. It has turned busy as hundreds of people turn up to greet Mr. Alam, who is home after four and a half years in prison.

The man at the centre of the growing tension in the PDP-BJP coalition, whose release caused a furore in Parliament on Monday, sits in a room full of people, meeting friends, speaking to journalists, and shaking hands with party workers. And he talks of returning to his “normal” life outside prison — resistance politics.

Who is Masarat Alam ?

• ›Masarat Alam Bhat (44) is general secretary of the Geelani-led Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and chairman of the J&K Muslim League.


• ›He received his early education from the elite Tyndale Biscoe School in Srinagar. He graduated in science from Srinagar’s Sri Pratap College.


• ›Alam joined the militant movement in the early 1990s and was part of the Hizbollah group.


• ›He came into political prominence as one of the main organisers of the 2008 protests following the transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board, and the 2010 protests following allegations of fake encounter against the Indian Army.


• ›The violent 2010 protests in the Kashmir Valley started in June and left over 120 dead. Alam managed the protests issuing “calendars” for the protesters to follow.


• ›He was arrested from near Srinagar city after being in hiding for four months.


• ›Alam was arrested under the Public Safety Act (PSA) — a preventive detention law in J&K under which anyone can be put into preventive custody for up to two years without trial.

“It is, in a sense, God’s grace and gift, that my release from prison is causing such a huge debate and fight in the Indian Parliament,” Masarat Alam told The Hindu. “But more importantly it shows how tenuous is the silence on the ground which is often portrayed as peace, and how afraid the Indian and pro-India establishment is of our ideas and beliefs.”

General Secretary of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and Chairman of the J&K Muslim League, 44-year-old Alam was one of the key organisers of the 2010 mass protests in Kashmir which led to the death of more than 120 civilians. Mr. Alam is aware that he could be arrested again as the uproar over his release continues to grow.

Asked about the huge turnout in the recent elections, Mr. Alam said that he had no doubt that people in Kashmir were with the freedom movement, but voted because of several daily compulsions in a “repressive atmosphere.”

“This is no democracy where the resistance activists are being imprisoned and put under house arrest so that they cannot reach out to people and articulate their ideas and politics. In a democracy and war of ideas, why would you imprison people? It is because this is not a democracy,” Mr. Alam said.

However, he said that after a long imprisonment he had no plans of his own and would follow the programme of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

A science graduate who received his early education from the elite Christian Missionary Bisoe School.

Mr. Alam joined militants in 1990.

The separatist leader comes from an affluent family that had a well-known garment business, one of the few who “sold Raymond cloth” in the valley. However, most of the money is gone now.

“When he [Alam] went to the freedom movement, the house [family] in a way followed the path of hardship. We slowly lost everything and now we live a humble life, but thankfully a dignified one,” Farooq Ahmad, Mr. Alam’s uncle who raised him after the death of his father, told The Hindu.

Mr. Alam lives with his uncle and his wife, Zahida, and his older, disabled sister. He has been in prison for more than five of the six years of his marriage.

Will not allow soft policy on such issues, says BJP

In New Delhi, the BJP said it had a “zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and separatism” and did not agree with the move.

Asked about the issue which has rocked the PDP-BJP alliance within days of its government taking charge in J&K, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that not only did it not agree with the way that Alam, a Hurriyat hardliner, was released, but it was also against the decision.

“BJP adopts a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and separatism and will not bow down by allowing soft or weak policy on these issues,” he said.

“The manner in which a separatist leader has been released, BJP does not agree with it. We are against it. It is wrong,” he said, adding that Home Minister Rajnath Singh had on Monday made it clear in both Houses of Parliament.

“Home Minister is keeping a close watch on the issue and whatever will happen will be as per the Constitution and as per the law,” he said.

A delegation of J&K BJP leaders will meet party president Amit Shah on Tuesday and apprise him of the meeting they had Mr. Sayeed.