Maqbool Bhat (18 February 1938-11 February 1984) was a co-founder of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) separatist group in Kashmir.
Biography[]
Maqbool Bhat was born on 18 February 1938 in Trahagam, Kashmir, British Raj to a Muslim family. He studied in Peshawar, Pakistan, and he worked as a teacher and journalist for years. On 14 September 1966, Bhat began to involve himself with Kashmiri separatists, taking part in the ambush of some Indian Army soldiers. Bhat would take part in a terrorist campaign against India and Pakistan, including a 1971 hijacking of a passenger plane to Lahore by his Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front militant group. In 1976, he escaped from Pakistan to India, where he was captured soon after. He was sentenced to death, carrying over the sentencing from an earlier trial (which ended with Bhat's escape from prison), and on 11 February 1984 he was hanged at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi after an Indian diplomat was murdered by Kashmiri terrorists in Birmingham, United Kingdom.