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| Govt sends Geelani homewith an Indian Passport Separatist hardliner launching ‘total demilitarisation’ stir from Jumat-ul-Vida | | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Sep 15: Contrary to the Union Home Minister P C Chidambaram, and now Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, showing an iron fist to the saboteurs of normality in Jammu & Kashmir, Ministry of External Affairs has gifted separatist Kashmiri hardline politician, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, with a velvet glove on occasion of his release from three-month-long detention under Public Safety Act (PSA). Still unrelenting, Geelani is launching a mass agitation for ‘total demilitarisation’ in the state from Friday next.
In an interview with the local news agency, Kashmir News Service, at his besieged residence in Hyderpora here today, patron of the radical faction of Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, confirmed that Government had, of late, issued an Indian Passport of one-year validity in his favour. Omar Abdullah’s National Conference (NC)-led coalition government had not shown any reaction when some media reports last week claimed that the Centre had issued a limited validity passport to Geelani during his period of detention at a Forest resthouse at Cheshma Shahi.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had indicated in one of his eight-month-old Government’s policy statements in the state legislative Assembly last month that some of the separatist detainees could be released on trial basis. According to him, all of the separatist detainees were in Police custody as they had a track record of disruptive activities and they could cause harm to the normality and a booming tourist season in the Valley. Even as Geelani was set free only after a court quashed all of the PSA detention orders against him, Government had, according to highly placed sources, directed Advocate General not to oppose the octogenarian leader’s release.
Sources revealed to Early Times that Home Department, directly under Chief Minister’s charge, had signaled Police agencies to re-arrest other separatist leaders like Democratic Freedom Party chief, Shabir Ahmed Shah, and Dukhtaraan-e-Millat supremo, Asiya Andrabi, but made it clear that Geelani be smoothly dropped back at his residence. Widespread speculations indicate Geelani’s visit to Pakistan with New Delhi’s facilitation in near future, though he has told the interviewer that his bad health would not permit it ‘for the time being’. Some men in top corridors of power insist that the UPA Government was close to a volte face in the wake of a series of attacks, including a deadly IED blast, on Police. They relate both, Home Minister’s as well as Prime Minister’s tough and terse statements on Kashmir and Pakistan to the same guerrilla offensive in Srinagar.
In hours of his release, Geelani not only called for a mass agitation for ‘total demilitarisation’ in Jammu & Kashmir but also led a pro-Azadi and anti-Indian demonstration to Hyderpora Chowk. Thereupon, Police posted a bandobust at his home that has reportedly regulated the incoming as well as the outgoing movement. Though Geelani has been asked to remain indoors, mediapersons have been as usual free to attend his news conferences and record his statements. In today’s interview with KNS, Geelani has announced to launch his demilitarization campaign from Friday next and asked the Kashmiris to carry placards and banners on Jumat-ul-Vida to press their demand of total demilitarization from Jammu & Kashmir.
Geelani has not, however, issued a calendar of shutdown or called for a mass march to Lalchowk as he had done repeatedly last year and indicated to start in the aftermath of alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian earlier this year. He, in fact, refused to lend his assent to a Valley-wide shutdown called by Majlis-e-Mushawarat Shopian on occasion of the J&K High Court granting bail to four Police officials accused of destroying evidence to the level of complicity in Shopian.
Pricking of the Chief Minister’s balloon of peace and normality, first by Chidambaram and now very significantly by Prime Minister himself, has clearly queered the pitch for demilitarization and withdrawal of J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which had in a way occupied the space of NC’s pre-election slogan of autonomy in the last eight months.
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