The State Investigation Agency (SIA) on Saturday sealed a house of late Kashmiri separatist and Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani at Barzulla in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar.
The house of the former president of All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was sealed on the orders of Srinagar’s District Magistrate (DM). Geelani passed away on September 1, 2021, after a prolonged illness.
His death is believed as the second major setback for the separatists in Kashmir after August 5, 2019 (abrogation of article 370 of the Indian constitution), while some observers believe that separatism is over in Kashmir. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir from the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim United Front. After the outbreak of the anti-India insurgency in 1989, he renounced electoral politics and played a central role as a separatist leader.
Before his death, the authorities had kept him under house arrest for 13 years. He was detained in 2010 during Omar Abdullah’s regime when he led a mass protest in Kashmir against the killing of four Kashmiri youths in an encounter that left dozens dead. However, in 2015, under Mufti Muhammad Saeed, Geelani was allowed to leave the house for a few weeks, but after raising anti-India slogans in a public meeting, he was again detained until his death.
Sometimes he had to be shifted to a hospital in Srinagar under high security for medical check-ups. Geelani was suffering from several disorders simultaneously. One of his kidneys was removed due to cancer while he underwent several heart surgeries. According to his close sources, his memory had also gone for the last two years.
Geelani started his politics with Jamaat-e-Islami, which is currently banned. He separated from Jamaat-e-Islami in 2003 and formed his own party called Tehreek Hurriyat, whose members were mostly affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami.
Geelani broke away from the Hurriyat Conference as well in response to the People’s Conference fielding a veiled candidate in the 2002 assembly elections and later became the head of one of its factions. He even closed the doors of his residence for a parliamentary delegation from Delhi.
His son, Nasibti Altaf Ahmad Shah, was also arrested by authorities in 2017 during a wide-ranging crackdown on separatists. Altaf Shah has since been detained in Delhi’s Tihar Jail for his involvement in the terror funding case.
Earlier on December 17, in a major crackdown against terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) seized properties worth hundred of crores of rupees of banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in several districts including Baramulla, Bandipora, Ganderbal and Kupwara.
The properties were seized after being notified by the concerned District Magistrates in the exercise of the powers conferred by Section 8 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and Notification No. 14017/7/2019, dated 28- February- 2019 of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. (ANI)
