Caging Geelani Hurriyat conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani continues to remain under house arrest for more than 100 days now at his Hyderpora residence CONFINEMENT MAJID MAQBOOL At 8 o’clock on the morning of February 9 when Afzal Guru was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, at exact 9am a Delhi Police party arrived at the flat in Malviya Nagar where Hurriyat conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani was staying with his daughter. For 19 consecutive days since that February morning Geelani was kept under detention and confined to his second floor apartment. When he was finally let off on March 7 to take a flight back to Srinagar, Kashmir Police had already arrived ahead of him at the Srinagar airport. He was immediately arrested on his arrival at the airport and taken to his residence. For more than 100 days now, Geelani continues to remain under house detention at his Hyderpora residence. “First 32 hours were very difficult as Delhi police personnel even entered inside our two rooms in our Malviya Nagar flat,” Geelani recalls at his Hyderpora residence. Few people, including some young boys from his neighborhood, have come to meet him at his residence. They wait for him in the guestroom. “My family was confined in those two rooms and our privacy was compromised,” he adds. “The role of Delhi Police was the worst in that period,” he says, adding that they did not even allow him to step out to offer Friday prayers during those 19 days of detention at his residence in New Delhi. Geelani hugs all his guests who have come to meet him. He greets them with affection as they sit near him in the guestroom and listen to him with rapt attention. After making himself comfortable on a sofa, behind which many books on Islam are stacked together on a shelf, he politely seeks reasons of their visit. A young boy from his neighborhood says he has come to see him and seek his blessing. “Aze khetpaeth pauyus bae hamsayan yaed,” he says with a smile. The boy looks down and smiles. Others have come from far off districts to meet him and seek his “dua-e-khaer”. He pays individual attention to each guest, enquiring about how they’re doing in their respective lives. Then he advises his young guests to work hard and study the Holy Quran and imbibe Quranic teaching in their lives. Before they leave, he kisses the young students on their forehead and says he will pray for them all. Confined to his home and under continued detention at his Hyderpora residence since March 7 this year, Geelani says he was only allowed to step out when he had to go for a medical checkup in the hospital. Wherever he goes, a police party always accompanies him. “Police personnel and two people from CID follow my vehicle on a bike,” he says. During more than three months of his continued house detention, Geelani says he has been allowed to step out of his home only on a few occasions. Once, he was allowed to go Ahmad Nager, he says, once to visit a dental surgeon, and once to SKIMS, Soura, for a medical checkup. “Rest I am not allowed to attend any function,” he says. “I’m even stopped from stepping out of my home to offer Friday prayers.” He says Kashmir Police has been permanently stationed outside his residence since 2010. After Tufail Matoo was killed during the 2010 civil uprising, he says curfew was imposed for 100 days and there was strike for a total of 117 days in 2010. “In 2010 I was kept under house arrest for 141 days till I moved to Delhi later that year,” he says. “I was also kept under house arrest for most of the year in 2011.” “Only on a few occasions I was allowed to go to the hospital for a medical checkup and another time to attend a marriage ceremony,” he says. Geelani says in 2012 he was able to offer Friday prayers after nine months—that too in Delhi when he reached his Malviya Nagar residence later that year. When Geelani returned from Delhi in March this year and was put under house arrest, he says people were not allowed to meet him at his Hyderpora residence for many days. “Even my close relatives and people from my party were not allowed to meet me,” he says. “Recently they stopped me from attending two seminars.” Geelani says 2013 has been the harshest year of detention for him as he is not even allowed to offer Friday prayers. In recent months, whenever he tried to step out of his home to offer Friday prayers, he says police would arrest him at the gate and take him to Humhama police station where he would be released at around 5 or 6pm. “Police is stationed here round the clock,” Geelani says, pointing at the entrance of his residence. “They have opened a permanent police station outside my gate.” Geelani says there’s no justification for his continued house arrest. “They don’t have any legal sanction or order to keep me under this illegal house arrest,” he says. “There’s no justification at all for this totally illegal confinement.” He says recently ICRC delegation visited his residence. “But they are also helpless as there is police raj here,” he says. “Even our courts have failed to give justice to people.” “We even approached the court recently,” Geelani says about challenging his house detention in the court. “But the state had no argument to keep me detained,” he says. After hearing all the arguments, the court reserved its decision about his continued house arrest. Reacting to Omar Abdullah’s recent statement that he is a “threat to law
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 01:55:47 +0000
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