Authorities blanket disputed area with troops and clamp down on communications to stop protests over Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s loss of life.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the veteran separatist chief from Indian-administered Kashmir, has been laid to relaxation because the Indian authorities crack down on public motion and impose a near-total communications blackout to stop protests.
Geelani, the icon of the disputed area’s resistance towards New Delhi’s rule, died late on Wednesday. He was 92.
Geelani was buried in a quiet funeral organised by the authorities beneath harsh restrictions, his son Naseem Geelani advised Al Jazeera.
He mentioned the household had deliberate the burial on the essential martyrs’ graveyard in Srinagar, the area’s essential metropolis, as per his will, however “they (police) snatched his physique and forcibly buried him”.
“We advised the administration that we are going to bury him at 10am in order that our kinfolk who stay in far-off areas may attend,” Naseem advised Al Jazeera.
“However they took the physique forcefully at 3am and didn’t enable any of us to participate within the final prayers. They even argued with the ladies within the household who resisted taking away his physique.”
Naseem mentioned it was solely at 10am on Thursday that the members of the family had been allowed to see Geelani’s grave.
The Press Belief of India information company reported that officers buried Geelani’s physique and disallowed any mass funeral in anticipation of anti-India protests.
Geelani, who died on Wednesday, had been unwell for a while, his household mentioned.
Icon of Kashmiri resistance
Among the many most distinguished political leaders in Kashmir – a Himalayan area claimed by each India and Pakistan in full, however dominated in elements – Geelani for years led an umbrella alliance of secessionists, often known as the Hurriyat Convention.
The alliance used civil disobedience within the type of shutdowns and protests as a tactic to counter Indian rule.
Only a few folks in Kashmiri politics have caught to their beliefs proper until the top of their lives. Syed Ali Shah Geelani did. He did not surrender, he did not give in.
That is the top of an enormous chapter in Kashmir’s politics.— Ashwaq M (@ashwaqM) September 1, 2021
However the Hurriyat Convention cut up in 2003, when a gaggle of separatists led by Geelani, who advocated Indian-administered Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan, walked out after moderates determined to carry talks with New Delhi.
Geelani strongly opposed any dialogue with New Delhi, a place rejected outright by successive Indian governments who usually dubbed him a hardline politician.
He was stored beneath home arrest greater than a decade after main a number of anti-India protests.
Round Geelani’s house and elsewhere in Srinagar, armed troops lined essential roads and manned checkpoints, as authorities sought to stop protests following his passing.
Kashmir is again to August 2019 sort of incommunicado. BSNL, landlines snapped too. Different cellular and web networks had been already defunct since midnight.
— Sana Fazili (@FaziliSana) September 2, 2021
Town’s essential enterprise space remained abandoned, with most outlets closed, and the motion of autos restricted, the witness mentioned. Authorities additionally lower web connections and cellular networks within the Kashmir valley since late on Wednesday.
The clampdown echoes restrictions that had been imposed in August 2019 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cut up Jammu and Kashmir – then the nation’s solely Muslim majority state – into two federally administered territories.
The shock transfer was opposed inside Indian-administered Kashmir, together with by the likes of Geelani who give up his Hurriyat Convention faction, saying that it had didn’t counter New Delhi’s efforts to tighten its grip on the disputed area.