Accusations were precipitated by Shabbir Shah's move to donate his property to a trust which will work for the relief and rehabilitation of the widows and orphans in the State. On April 13, 1998, Shabbir Shah disclosure that he possessed property worth Rs 1 crore and declared that he planned to donate it for the benefit of the destitute and needy. Naeem Khan, one-time close lieutenant of Shah and chairman of a breakaway group of pro-Pakistan People's League ... challenged Shah on the ground that since the assets belonged to the People's League and were not Shah's personal Property, he could not unilaterally decide on the fate of the funds. He also alleged that the actual funds were 50 times more than the amount which Shah had disclosed.

Even though in the Valley's past nine years of turbulent history, the inter and intra-party fracas among the separatist groups is nothing new, it is for the first time that the donations accumulated by the parties and persons during this period have made the secessionist leaders to go public against one another.

It is generally felt that the separatist leaders of all hues in Kashmir have amassed large amount of wealth through donations received from different parts of the world, ever since armed insurgency erupted in the Valley in late 1989. Cases are reported to have been registered against quite a few of them for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act ..

While the leaders of All Party Hurriyat Conference, the premier platform of secessionist political groups, have repeatedly denied having received any outside donations, Shabbir Shah, perhaps to score a moral point over others, candidly admitted of receiving cash and kind from abroad.

... It is perhaps impossible to figure out precisely just how many destitutes, widows and orphans were created by the years of turmoil. And the unending violence continued to increase their number terribly. Those who die or have died are definitely prayed for and remembered, but the miseries and helplessness of the survivors, particularly of women and children, are unimaginable ..

Instances abound of slain militants' families living in abject misery and it may need volumes of paper to pen down the neglect and disregard that the hapless widows and orphans in the Valley are going through for years. Few people pause to consider their wretched condition, least of all those claiming to champion their cause. It may perhaps sound proper to say that the Kashmiri people are presently going through a phase which leaves little room for assimilating many-sided truths. The harshest truth of all is that the Valley gave birth to class of people in the past nine years who made good fortunes out of the miseries of others.

The so-called leaders in and outside the All Party Hurriyat Conference are no exception. Few of them can claim to have resisted the glamour and fascination of money and power. Even those who ... used to give sermons on "simple life in simple society" are themselves living a lavish lifestyle equivalent to the five-star culture.

Almost every self-proclaimed leader has a car (a large number of them have more than one), palatial houses, and all the comforts that money can buy. Even the people around them are availing every luxury of life ...             (Source: Shabbir Ahmad in The Pioneer, 4 May, 1998)