During the college days, he was involved with the student activities of the Plebiscite Front (founded by Mirza Afzal Beg when Sheikh Abdullah was in prison for canvassing for independence).

The student activists of the Plebiscite Front were also targeted at this time, causing Maqbool Bhat to leave for Pakistan in August 1958.

[6] In 1961, Bhat contested in the 'Basic Democracy' elections introduced by President Ayub Khan's military regime, and won the Kashmiri diaspora seat from Peshawar.

In April 1965, the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front was formed in Muzaffarabad at the initiative of Abdul Khaliq Ansari, its president, and Amanullah Khan, its general secretary.

Undeterred, they established an underground group called National Liberation Front (NLF), obtaining some support for it in August 1965.

All the members swore in blood that they would be ready to sacrifice their lives for the objective of the NLF, viz., to create conditions in Jammu and Kashmir that enable its people to demand self-determination.

The group kidnapped a CID police inspector called Amar Chand as a hostage and, when he tried to escape, shot and killed him.

Bhat and Mir Ahmad were captured and tried for sabotage and murder, receiving death sentences from a Srinagar court in September 1968.

[c] Major Amanullah's wing waiting to receive the volunteers at the Line of Control retreated, but it was arrested by the Pakistan Army.

[6][12][13][11] Maqbool Bhat's arrest brought the group's activities into the open, and sharply divided the Plebiscite Front.

[18] Hashim Qureshi, a Srinagar resident who went to Peshawar on family business in 1969, met Maqbool Bhat and got inducted into the NLF.

However, Qureshi was arrested by the Indian Border Security Force when he tried to reenter into Jammu & Kashmir, India via LoC with arms and equipment.

He negotiated his way out by claiming to help find other conspirators that were allegedly in the Indian territory, sought an appointment in the Border Security Force to provide such help.

Maqbool Bhat sent Qureshi replacement equipment for the hijacking, but it fell into the hands of a double agent, who then turned it over to the Indian authorities.

Undeterred, the Qureshis made look-alike explosives out of wood and hijacked an Indian Airlines plane called Ganga on 30 January 1971.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto showed up at the airport and paid a handsome tribute to the hijackers.

A one-man investigation committee headed by Justice Noorul Arifeen declared the hijacking to be an Indian conspiracy, citing Qureshi's appointment in the Border Security Force.

[23] According to Hashim Qureshi, 400 activists of the Plebiscite Front and NLF were arrested in Pakistan after the Ganga hijacking.

He was encouraged by the student protests against the 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord, by which Sheikh Abdullah surrendered his demand and joined Indian system.

They demanded the release of Maqbool Bhat and a sum of money from the Indian government but killed him just two days after abduction.

Since his death, the JKLF has demanded that the mortal remains of the party's founder, which were buried inside the Tihar Jail, be handed over.

[31] On 4 November 1989, JKLF militants allegedly shot dead judge Neelkanth Ganjoo, who had presided over the Amar Chand murder trial, and declared sentence of death on Maqbool Bhat.