‘Hartal’ to neta — how a notorious Srinagar stone-thrower found his calling in politics

As a teenager, Asif Zargar led a gang of stone pelters that terrorised security forces in Srinagar. Now, he is all set to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Asif Zargar | Moushumi Das Gupta/ThePrint

Srinagar: For the better part of his teenage years, Asif Zargar, 26, was more famous as “Hartal” (strike), his code name as the leader of a gang of stone pelters in downtown Nowhatta in Srinagar.

He earned the label in 2007, when Kashmir was on the boil. Protests had become commonplace and youngsters, most of whom were school- and college-going youth, took to stone pelting to attack security forces.

At 14, Hartal headed a gang of 10 youngsters, mostly teenagers. Their modus-operandi was simple — after school hours they would gather at a location in downtown Srinagar, collect mid-sized stones and then move stealthily around the city’s bylanes.

Zargar says they would surprise security forces at protest sites. Before the security forces could regroup, the gang would finish with its stone pelting and disappear into the nearby bylanes. The tactic, Zargar says, proved lethal.

In less than six months, he had become the dread of security forces for his precision. To counter the gang, security forces began deputing men in civilian clothes to the protest sites. The code names were necessitated to avoid getting caught.

“My friends kept my name as Hartal as I participated in every protest march,” Zargar tells ThePrint.

Cut to March 2019 and it is difficult to believe that the suave, soft-spoken, stocky young man in a fashionable jacket and a black muffler was once dreaded by police and security forces.

Sitting at a Cafe Coffee Day outlet in Srinagar, Zargar tells ThePrint that he gave up stone-pelting in 2010 after being in and out of jail numerous times.

“I gave it up because I could no longer bear the pain and hurt in my mother’s eye,” he says.

With his stone-pelting days behind him, Zargar now harbours political ambitions. In 2018, he contested the urban local body elections as an Independent candidate but lost. It, however, has not dimmed his public life aspirations.

“I want to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as an Independent candidate. Because I have seen life on the other side of the law, I think I am better placed to connect with the youngsters who like me took to stone pelting or joined militancy,” Zargar says.

“I can relate to them. I can tell them how futile such decisions are. We might think we are doing this for our own people, for a cause but in reality, nobody is bothered. People will treat us as criminals.”

‘Started stone-pelting after cops shot friend’

Zargar says that he took to stone-pelting after seeing a friend die in police firing.

The death had come on the back of a lonely childhood. His father, Nissar Ahmed Zargar, was a member of the militant organisation Al-Umar Mujahideen.

“I never saw my father. He was killed by the police when I was still in my mother’s womb,” Zargar says, adding that after his father’s death nobody came to see him or his mother.

“We finally moved in with my maternal uncle’s family,” says Zargar. “They took very good care of us. I was admitted at the Motherland High School. Soon after, my mother remarried after some pestering from my maternal uncle’s family.”

As he was trying to cope with the separation from his mother, another tragedy unfolded.

“I was returning home from school one day with my friend Muntazir, who was my senior,” he says. “A protest march was underway in downtown Srinagar. We were passing by when I suddenly saw Muntazir slump on the road. He was bleeding.”

Muntazir was allegedly hit by a stray bullet fired by security forces. As Muntazir’s lifeless body lay on the road, a crowd had gathered. “He died in front of my eyes,” Zargar says. “In the evening I went to his house and was very disturbed when I saw his mother wailing.”

Zargar says he took up stone pelting soon after. “I was angry all the time. I did not know what to do, or who to talk to. But I realised that after pelting stones I felt better,” he says. “I got a high each time I pelted a stone and it hit a member of the security forces.”

As his notoriety rose, so did the concern of his family members. “My maternal aunt called my mother to counsel me. But I had reached a stage where I could not connect with any of my family members, including my mother,” he says.

Zargar’s mother began coming every day to his maternal uncle’s house to look after him. “She used to wander all day in the streets of downtown Srinagar searching for me,” he says.

And soon enough, the run-ins with law enforcement agencies also began.

He was first arrested in 2008 after being caught by a group of policemen in civil clothes near Khanyar. “I was put up in the lock-up at the Khanyar police station and beaten. I was in Class 9 then,” he says.

Police allegedly tore Zargar’s clothes and hung them on a tree outside the Khanyar police station. “They called for my mother and maternal uncle and wanted them to see my condition. I was released after three days,” he says. “After my release, I became more aggressive and reckless. I did not know where I was heading.”

Zargar says that unlike what people say, neither he nor anybody in his gang was given money to pelt stones. “It is bunkum,” he says. “Everybody had their own story to take up stone pelting. Money was not the reason. It was more to do with the anger and frustration.”

He was in and out of jail twice after 2008. In 2009, he got hit by a pellet shell on his face while planning to attack the Khanyar police station with his gang. “I was one of the first victims of the pellets. I was sent to my relative’s place to recover,” he says.

In September 2010, Asif was arrested again and charged under the Public Safety Act.

The last straw

The last straw, says Zargar, came when his mother visited him in jail in 2010.

“In front of me, she fell at the feet of the police officials and started crying. But they were unmoved,” he says.

He was allegedly beaten up mercilessly. “My maternal uncle visited me and pleaded that if I continue like this, my mother’s marriage will fall apart. And that he won’t be in a position to help her because of me,” Zargar says. “My uncle told me that he will try to get me out only if I don’t pelt stones again.”

Zargar says that earlier he was happy as he believed that he would be held in high regard as he pelted stones. “I was very naive,” he says. “When my mother came to visit me in jail, I asked her what people thought of me. She told me that our neighbours are saying that ‘good that Hartal is in jail. Our children won’t get spoiled by him’.

“I was tired of all this. And I could not bear to see the pain in my mother’s eye,” he adds. “The last thing I wanted was her marriage getting affected because of me.”

His uncle, a businessman, used his influence to finally get him out of jail after a fortnight. “I was at my maternal uncle’s home after getting released. I reflected on how I had made a mess of my life,” he says. “I wanted out.”

A new life

Zargar first secured a B. Com degree from Srinagar’s Islamia College of Science and Commerce. Soon after, his uncle helped him set up a small construction business.

It was around this time, Zargar says, that he met a former stone pelter who worked with the youth wing of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a mainstream political party in the state.

“He used to work with people on the ground and had developed good contacts,” Zargar says. “He told me to explore joining the youth wing of some political party.”

That was when Zargar says he went to meet the Khanyar MLA Ali Mohammad Sagar of the National Conference (NC).

“I was sent to meet his son Salman. I told him that I wanted to work with him and that I needed a break,” Zargar says. “He told me that the work is very tedious as I had to go meet people in his father’s constituency, listen to their grievances and inform him. I agreed.”

Zargar began meeting people. “It was not easy. Wherever I went, people called me names,” he says. “They said I was a police informer, a traitor. It was the same people who had taunted me when I was in jail.”

But there was no looking back. Last year he quit the NC and decided to go solo in the local body elections. “I believe I have the experience to go independent. Also, I realised that I will not grow in a big party such as the NC,” he says.

Zargar lost from M.R. Gunj constituency but believes that it was due to the tension in the Valley. “The situation in Kashmir was not conducive for elections. People did not cast their votes,” he says.

Having now decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections, the reformed stone-pelter says that it’s only through political means that Kashmir’s issues can be addressed.

“Keeping away from elections won’t help anybody. You have to be in the system to change and improve it,” he says. “Dialogue has to happen and it has to happen within the constitutional framework.”