Pro-Pakistan Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani breathed his last on September 1 at 10.30 pm at his Srinagar residence. He died 92 at the time of his death.
The funeral took place on Thursday morning. Meanwhile, apprehensive that his funeral would attract huge crowds, security has been hardened in the Kashmir Valley. Internet services have been suspended while police informed curfew would be imposed. Senior members of the Hurriyat,
Mukhtar Ahmed Waza has been detained. Security outside Geelani’s house in Srinagar has also been tightened.
The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed condolences on his demise, saying she admired him for “his steadfastness & standing by his beliefs.” Though they disagreed on several things, she is saddened by the news of his passing, Mufti tweeted.
Geelani who was the face of the separatist politics in Jammu and Kashmir had been in poor health for a long time. He quit politics and from Hurriyat last year.
When stepping down from the organisation after 27 years of association, Geelani had accused it of conspiring against him and failing to fire up the separatist movement after the centre’s 2019 abolition of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
He suffered a heart attack in 2018 and was hospitalised.
Geelani was born on September 29, 1929, at Zurmanz, a village on the banks of the Wular lake in Bandipore. He received his education in Sapore and finished his higher studies at the Oriental College, Lahore (in present-day Pakistan).
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Geelani worked as a school teacher, started his political career under the guardianship of Maulana Mohammad Sayeed Masoodi, a senior National Conference (NC) leader, but soon shifted to Jamat-e-Islami. The socio-religious organisation ascended to the NC leadership and saw Kashmir as an “unfinished agenda” of Partition.
Geelani's electoral career began from Sopore, a traditional separatist and Jamat hotbed. He contested his first Assembly elections in 1972 and represented Sopore in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir Assembly for three terms and his last term ended suddenly in 1987 when militancy erupted in Kashmir.
Viewed as the important separatist leader in Kashmir, Omar Abdullah had blamed Geelani for the rise of militancy in the Valley.
In 2013, he was re-elected for the fourth time to serve a three-year term as the chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G), a faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. This unit had split in 2003. He established the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat party and was elected as its chairman. In his political career, Geelani has called for infinite strikes and shutdowns, with regards to deaths of unnamed suspected militants, local militants and the death of civilians in Kashmir.
Mr Geelani was a fervent supporter of the armed struggle for resolving the Kashmir issue and was amongst the seven executive members of the Hurriyat Conference in 1993 when it was formed. Several times he has been alleged of supporting militancy and resolute ideology on Kashmir has caused discord between him and his colleagues in the Hurriyat Conference.
Geelani had a significant influence on the younger generation of Kashmir, which grew over his steadfast engagement with the Centre and opposition to Pervez Musharraf’s Four-Point formula. He was slammed by Musharraf's regime for his stand.
He has spearheaded several agitations from 2008 to 2016, drafted protest calendars that were running a parallel administration in Kashmir for a number several He had refused to let the 27-member parliamentarians enter in 2016 when the Valley was disordered for several months due to street protest after the Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani, was killed, which was condemned by many in Delhi.
Geelani had also been charged with Sedition in November 2010 under several sections of the IPC, such as for imputation, insult intended to provoke breach of peace amongst others. After the 2019 Pulwama attack, strong action was taken against pro-Pakistani separatists leaders which also included Geelani.
A penalty of ₹14.40 lakh was levied by the ED on Geelani and an order to seize
approximately ₹6.8 lakh in association with a Foreign Exchange Management Act case was filed for illegal ownership of the foreign exchange.
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About Pakistan, Geelani had said, "Kashmir is not any border dispute between India and Pakistan which they can solve by bilateral understandings. It is an issue concerning the future of 15 million people. The Hurriyat is not in principle against a dialogue process but without the involvement of the Kashmiri people, such a process has proved meaningless in the past. We don’t have any expectations of it being fruitful in future too."
Geelani had been frequently reprimanded by Indian authorities for inciting violence in the Kashmir region that was fueled by him when he openly said that he was not an Indian.
"We are Pakistani; Pakistan is ours," he said while addressing his supporters.
Pakistan too had also openly supported Geelani.
Although Geelani wanted to free Kashmir and found a resolution for issues faced by the Valley, he himself was supporting the idea to merge it with Pakistan. In 2020, the Pakistan government awarded him with Nishan-e-Pakistan, the highest civilian honour of the country.
To honour Geelani, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the country will observe official mourning and the country’s flag will fly half-mast. Geelani had struggled “all his life for his people & their right to self-determination”, said Khan.