In their respective public lives, Mirwaiz Moulvi Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone had practically nothing in common. Yet, they were destined to share a tragic common fate: Both were assassinated on May 21—the former in 1990 and the latter in 2002.Mirwaiz Farooq, with a revered urban pedigree, headed the ‘separatist’ Awami Action Committee floated by Maulana Mohammad Sayeed Masoodi in 1964 in the wake of the Holy Relic agitation in Kashmir.

Abdul Ghani Lone, with rustic lineage from a remote Handwara village in north Kashmir, came into political limelight as a self made Congress MLA from Handwara in 1967 under GM Sadiq’s leadership and eventually floated his own ‘pro-autonomy’ Peoples Conference in 1970s.

In his last lap, Lone jumped on to the Hurriyat bandwagon though........

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