An apology to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has at last earned Jammu and Kashmir leader Bhim Singh’s UK-based son Ankit Love an opportunity to see his dead mother in Jammu and participate in her cremation.
Love, 39, who was blacklisted by the high commission in London for taking part in an anti-government protest, had been waiting for the Indian government’s clearance for his visa to return for the last rites of his mother Jay Mala, an advocate, who died on April 26.
He reportedly got the clearance on Thursday and is flying back. Love has been given a three-month emergency visa for attending his mother’s last rites.
“Thank you India for taking me off the blacklist so that I may go and attend my mother’s funeral. God bless,” he wrote on Facebook, posting a copy of the visa.
“Praise Shiva! Mom, I will be there tomorrow! Promise. Thank you Prime Minister Narendra Modi and everyone for your loving support to get me back home for my mom’s funeral. Peace & #Love Prof Bhim Singh,” he said in another post.
Jammu politician and Love’s cousin Harsh Dev Singh, also a leader of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) that was founded by Prof. Bhim Singh, said Mala’s cremation would take place on Friday.
“Mala ji’s cremation will be held in Devika, Udhampur, on Friday, 5th May at 1pm. The last rites shall be performed by her son Ankit Love,” Harsh Dev posted on social media. Love in the only son of Bhim Singh, who died in May last year.
In November 2020, Singh was expelled by the party he founded for taking part in a meeting of the Farooq Abdullah-headed People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, which is fighting for the restoration of Article 370.
Love is facing charges of damaging property under the UK’s Criminal Damage Act 1971 after taking part in an anti-government protest at India’s High Commission Office in London on February 13, 2022.
Media reports had then quoted him as saying that the protest was against “the Indian government’s unlawful conduct in Jammu and Kashmir, in particular the 1991 Kunan Poshpora mass rape”.
Dozens of women were alleged to have been raped in the Kupwara village that day, although the army denies the charge. On Tuesday, Love had written on Facebook that he had applied for visa on April 26, the day his mother passed away, but it was being delayed.
“I Ankit Love, son of late Prof. Bhim Singh and late Adv. Jay Mala, resident of UK hereby sincerely apologise for my mistake of pelting eggs and stones at the Indian High Commission in UK which I deeply and sincerely regret,” he wrote a day later in an open letter to Prime Minister Modi.
He assured the authorities that there would be “no such act” by him “against my Nation which I love very much and am very much proud of”.
The body of Love’s mother has been kept at a mortuary in Jammu on his request. He could not attend the funeral of his father earlier.
In Jammu, Prof. Singh’s family is locked in a prolonged tussle over the control of the party. Mala had been staying with Singh’s niece Mrignayani Slathia.
Mrignayani said on Thursday that she would commit suicide if Mala’s postmortem was not performed, apparently suggesting that she was being accused of foul play.
Mala fell from the stairs on the evening of April 25 and died the next day.
On April 28, Love, also the chief patron of the JKNPP, requested Vilakshan, Mrignayani’s brother, to resign from the post of party president for failure to ensure his mother’s “security and survival”.
