SRINAGAR, Oct 6: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front today formally announced the merger of its Kashmir and Pakistan based two factions, to be supreme headed for lifetime by Amanullah Khan.The reunited front will stage a sit-in in apple town Sopore tomorrow against the hanging of Parliament attack convict, Mohammed Afzal Guru.The merger follows the meeting between Pakistan based Khan and JKLF chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik at Rawalpindi recently. "The two main factions of JKLF have been merged following my meeting with Ammanullah Khan at his residence in Rawalpindi wherein it was in principle decided to reunite the party," Malik told reporters at the party headquarters at Maisuma here.Amanullah Khan would be the supreme head of the amalgam while Malik would be the chairman till the central convention is held, he announced.“The office of the supreme head shall specially and specifically remain assigned to Ammanullah Khan only, who shall be the most respectable personality to every member, office bearer and leader of JKLF,” he said. “Mohammad Yasin Malik shall run the overall organisational work as well as the affairs of freedom movement, leading a 19 member committee with proportionately divided representation from every zone.”The chairman also announced that a JKLF group would lead a protest sit-in tomorrow against the hanging of Afzal Guru at Sopore—the hometown of the parliament convict.Pertinently, the JKLF had recently announced to launch campaign against the hanging of the convict, following the failure of the mainstream parties in passing a clemency resolution for him in the legislative assembly.ISLAMABAD (Agencies): The factions formed a special committee to oversee the merger and this body finalised the process on September 18, JKLF leader Muhammad Rafiq Dar said.The JKLF, which was formed to wage an armed struggle, split into two factions in 1995 after Malik publicly renounced violence.Dar and Amanullah Khan told a news conference at the Press Club here that leaders of the JKLF in both parts of Kashmir will now jointly work on issues, including moves to highlight alleged human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir and the "Save Afzal Guru Campaign" launched by Malik.Guru, a Kashmiri who was convicted for conspiracy in the December 2001 terror attack on the Indian parliament, was sentenced to death in 2004.He is currently on death row and parties like the BJP have been pressing the government to carry out his execution.During the news conference, Dar said Amanullah, who founded the JKLF in 1977, would be the "lifetime supreme head" of the organisation.Malik would be the chairman of the JKLF till a supreme council is formed and a central convention is held to give shape to the future plans of the organisation.
