The Kashmiri separatists survived from being an ideological orphan as the health of their ideological father Syed Ali Shah Geelani deteriorated thrice a day but he held his breath finally. Geelani, the chairman of Hurry-at Conference (G) has severe illness and people doubt about his survival potential. In fact a New Delhi based news channel telecast a fake report about death of Geelani and it did a good round in the media. Due to the so-called “credibility” of that channel even the Wikipedia reportedly updated the death of Geelani. The news dominated the social networks and it gained a further momentum due to sudden pow-er cut in Jammu and Kashmir and a total blackout for telecommunication service in the Indian province. Blackout is the obvious trend in critical situations.
The HC (G) spokesperson Ayaz Akbar released a statement in the media refuting these false rumors and said that they will “investigate” why such rumors were spread. Mr. Akbar also stated that a government chopper was offered by the CM Omar Abdullah to carry him to medical fa-cilities in New Delhi. How-ever Geelani rejected that offer. Mr. Akbar said that Geelani will move to New Delhi for treatment in Apol-lo Hospital by a routine flight scheduled at 12 PM on Thursday.
Geelani holds special position among the separatist section of Kashmir. His political career started as a fanatic leader of Jamat-e-Islami Kashmir and then he formed his own party Tehreek-e-Hurryat. Later on he became the shadow commander of the Kashmiri terrorists and his brainchildren Mujahideens were responsible for the exodus of the minority Kashmiri Pundits from JnK. The Jamat-e-Isl-ami has been the ideological father of the various Mujahideen organizations active in Kashmir like Al-Ansar, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizb-ul-Muja-hideen etc.
It was in the 90’s when suddenly the majority Kashmiri fanatic mass forced the Kashmiri Pundits to become refugee in their own home-land in just 3 days. Within hours top local BJP leaders of Kashmiri pundits (KP) were assassinated. The lo-cal mosques started announcing the KP’s to leave the valley in single cloth.
KP’s started being target killed; the atrocities on KP’s witness the highest level of brutality humanity have ever seen. The KP women and girls, even underage, were abducted and mass-raped, gang-raped and then mutilated and burnt alive. In such a case, a KP nurse in a Srinagar based hospital; was raped by reportedly 50 Kashmiri fanatics. The devilish slogan, “We want Pakistan, with your (KP’s) women, without your men.” Pakistani and Islamic slogans filled the air with poison. “Jeevy Jeevy Pakistan, Murdabad Hindustan” (Long Live Pakistan, Down with India) slogans were raised by them. The KP children also were beheaded. There were occasions when mutilated, half-dead KP men asked for last drop of water and the grinning onlookers spit on his mouth. Such visuals have been archived by the KP activists. A deadline of 48 hours was given to the KPs to leave Kashmir and within 3 days 4 Lakh KPs left the valley and are refugee in their own homeland. This is known as “Kashmiri pundit holocaust”.
But the Kashmiri separatists have maintained a constant chaos in the inter-national media and with some paid agents within the KP community that succeeded in building an international opinion that India and Pundits are the oppressor in
Kashmir. Ghulam Navi Fai was offered $250m by ISI to run this propaganda by Kashmiri American Centers in USA and Denmark. A lot of politicians in India bark pro-separatist tones for obvious reasons and returns. The Kashmiri Muslims on the other hand enjoy a lot of privileges the rest of Indians can only dream, varying from subsidized goods and services to special status to JnK but Indian politicians never bring out the atrocities carried out against KPs in order to safeguard their Muslim-votebank in both Kashmir and rest of India.
The KPs and strategic experts directly point Geelani among others for this bloodshed. Geelani has a past of anti-India activities and in 1981 his passport was seized by the Indian govern-ment. He was allowed to leave India only for his Hajj pilgrimage in 2006. He was allowed to visit US for treatment but US denied to permit him from visiting US be-cause of his anti-US criticism and projihadist opinions. Geelani condemned the operation against terrorist Osama-bin-Laden and mass prayer was organized to pray peace to Osama. CM Omar Abdullah directly held him responsible for the blood-shed in Kashmir. Even in October 2010 he was held responsible for the stone-pelting movement and Kashmiri unrest. Geelani is reported to have support from Pakistan through extremely covert channel but there are obvious restrictions that prevent the Indian government from naming those agents. He was criticized at a seminar in New Delhi held in October 2010 for his views, because of which he could potentially face sedition charges under section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The name of Geelani is enough for creating a chaos in Kashmir and that is why as soon as the rumor of his news broke out, the Deputy Commissioner Faruq Ahmed Shah and SSP of Budgam visited his residence and confirmed about his health. The Jammu Kashmir Liber-ation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik also visited Geelani and strategized sev-eral issues.
Geelani who has denied any government assistance in his treatment, has become an icon among the Kash-miris and a proverb has been dominating the sloganeer of Kashmir, “Kabhi na bikne wala Geelani” (Never Com-promising Geelani). He has denied the service saying that he opposes the system and can’t use the resources of that system. It is note-worthy here that Geelani has been a Member of Legisla-tive Assembly (MLA) from Sopore. In July 2012, a National Conference leader accused Geelani of being a double agent. He alleged that while he receives pension from the Government for his membership of J&K Legislative assembly prior to 1990. Geelani has been diagnosed Renal Cancer. Geelani has used the government facilities for his treatment in a Mumbai hospital.
Now this time Gilani is saying that he has rejected the government chopper be-cause he opposes the sys-tem. However a stark hypocrisy is that he is going to Apollo Hospital, New Del-hi, the capital of India, the nation which he opposes. The bigger irony is that he is scheduled to be treated by the noted oncologist Dr. Sameer Kaul, a Kashmiri Pundit. The man who is held responsible for the brutal death of thousands of Kashmiri Pundits, will be treated to life by none other than a Kashmiri Pundit.
The author is an India based strategic and political commentator. He contributes his articles to
Afghanistan Times as guest writer
