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Sheikh Abdul Rashid, widely known as Engineer Rashid, on July 5, took oath as the Member of Parliament of the Baramulla constituency, in a closed chamber in New Delhi, away from the media gaze. Hailing from a small town of Langate, close to the Line of Control (LoC), in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, the 56-year-old founder of the Awami Ittehad Party became the first jailed Kashmiri leader to have elected to Parliament.
The story of Mr. Rashid’s rise as a politician is like a script lifted straight out of Bollywood.
Long before he completed his diploma in civil engineering, Mr. Rashid, in his early 20s, was forced to work as a porter for the Army. He cleared live mines to ensure the Army had a safe passage in the volatile and militancy-dominated Kupwara district.
Cut to 2005: Mr. Rashid, then a junior engineer in the Roads and Buildings Department, was kidnapped by militants in Sopore for refusing to hand over construction material to them. The militants would accuse him of “indulging in anti-militancy activities”. A year later, security forces detained him on the charges of supporting militancy. He paid ₹35,000 and three mobile phones as bribe to avoid Public Safety Act (PSA), a law pertaining to preventive detention up to two years without a trial, he later said. “My father sold land to pay the bribe,” Mr. Rashid told this reporter after his release, five months after he was jailed. But he lost the government job in the course.
Political entry
Mr. Rashid plunged into politics in 2008 with the sole aim of “getting a security cover and a vehicle”. However, destiny had other plans. He won the 2008 Assembly elections from Langate and as an MLA, he addressed the public issues that other leaders hardly touched. He got areas of Langate free from Army camps and checkpoints for easy movement of locals. He would hit streets against alleged human rights abuses.
Wearing nylon slippers or plastic shoes and donning a Khan suit or a pheran, a long woollen robe for winters, Mr. Rashid stood out for his rustic look in the Assembly with most MLAs neatly dressed. He brought in resolutions on including the United Jihad Council, an amalgam of militant outfits, into talks over Kashmir, and sought clemency for Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He also made 3,000 youth to take pledge against stone pelting in 2010.
There was an incident which his followers cite to explain how he managed to establish a strong connect with the locals. In 2011, Mr. Rashid heard a knock on the door at around 1 O’clock. It was a man who left home to commit suicide but decided to share his problem with the MLA. The man wanted to marry a girl from a different caste but faced opposition. Mr. Rashid drove in the night to the girl’s home and managed to fix the date of marriage with the family.
It’s this goodwill that reflected in his election battles. Though he lost the 2019 Parliament elections, he got 1.2 lakh votes against the J&K National Conference’s (JKNC) 1.33 lakh votes. A few months later, he was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, just as the Centre revoked J&K’s special status on August 5, 2019. The NIA, in its chargesheet, said, “The role of Engineer Rashid, in the conspiracy to destabilise Kashmir and cause unrest, has been revealed”.
Imprisonment did not weaken Mr. Rashid’s fighting spirit. In the 2024 election, he defeated former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, and J&K Peoples Conference’s Sajjad Lone in Baramulla. Rashid won 4.72 lakh votes against Abdullah’s 2.68 lakh.
“The argument that Rashid won because separatists voted for him is a fallacy. Data suggests he took a lead in areas where Pahari and Gujjars communities live and won maximum Shia votes in several areas,” Mr. Rashid’s campaigner and son Abrar Rashid told The Hindu.
The electoral “victory is for the voiceless”, his son said. “People of Kashmir deserve an honourable resolution of all issues and if they have chosen Rashid to speak for them in Parliament, he should be allowed,” Mr. Abrar added.
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