The Governor’s administration in Jammu & Kashmir on Thursday relaxed restrictions on the movement of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to travel to his native village in north Kashmir’s Sopore. Geelani has been held under house arrest since 2015 since he returned from New Delhi after spending winter months there.
His close aide Masarat Alam Bhat who was arrested after Geelani’s arrival in Srinagar was charged under the Public Safety Act (PSA) for the 37th time.
Geelani, 89, heads a faction of Hurriyat Conference and constitutes three-member Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) that leads separatist campaign in the embattled State. A spokesman of his party said that Geelani traveled to Dooru village of Sopore, 55 kilometers from here, to meet his eldest daughter whose husband died after a prolonged illness on Tuesday. Geelani has been under house arrest since 2015. A contingent of police and paramilitaries guard his house in Hyderpora locality of uptown Srinagar and mostly prevent visitors to enter the premises. Geelani has not been allowed to offer Friday congregational prayers in a local mosque for the past five years, the spokesman said.
Geelani was allowed to move out of his residence a day after his close aide and Mulsim League chief Masarat Alam Bhat was booked under PSA for the 37 the time consecutively. Bhat was arrested in April 2015, just 40 days after his release from 5-year imprisonment. He was arrested on charges of raising anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans on Geelani’s in a public rally on Geelani’s arrival from New Delhi.
The PSA is a law that allows the authorities to detain a person for a period of six months without bail.
Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) extended the judicial remand of the chairperson of all-women organization Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM) Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates, Nahida Nasreen and Sofi Fehmeeda till December 4.
“Judicial custody of trio has been extended till December 4, 2018,” said family sources. Andrabi and her associates have been arrested in July and held on charges of fomenting separatism and receiving funding from overseas.
They are lodged in Tihar Jail where several other separatists including Geelani’s son-in –law Altaf Shah and prominent businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali have been lodged.
The NIA has carried out a prolonged crackdown on Kashmiri separatists and a section of suspected businessmen for receiving terror funding.
