The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has sought an elaborate report from the Jammu and Kashmir police on the burial of Kashmir’s top resistance leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who dies on 1 September in Srinagar, reported the The Hindu.
Quoting a senior police official, the newspaper said that a report was being prepared “on the ‘sequence of events’ between 10:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. during the night of September 1-2, the time period when the final rites of Geelani took place in Srinagar’s Hyderpora area under heavy security.”
It also adds that sources further said a Geneva-based rights organisation has raised the issue of Geelani’s burial with the Indian government.
Geelani’s two sons had told The Kashmir Walla that policemen snatched their father’s body after thery barged into the room, where the body lay. In a detailed interview to The Kashmir Walla his sons – Naeem Geelani and Naseem Geelani, gave sequence of events of the night.
“The family had no preparations for the burial — the administration had managed everything,” Naseem had told The Kashmir Walla. “They had already dug the grave, brought a coffin, bathing plank, and shroud.”
His elder brother, who suffers from heart ailments, broke down and told the police, “Either you let us do it or else go: do whatever you have by using the force.”
Geelani’s grave in Hyderpora remains under guard even after over ten days. The Hindu also reported that according to the police sources, “the police had prepared a ‘G-Plan’ — a burial plan for Geelani several years ago, to ensure that the funeral prayers do not turn into a major law and order situation. The police had also worked out a “security corridor” up to the graveyard. Though the police seemed indecisive till the last moment on whether to bury Geelani at the ‘Martyrs’ Graveyard’ as per his wish or at his native place of Dooru in Sopore, Baramulla, or in Hyderpora, Srinagar, the current residence of Geelani.”
After internet was restored, the police however released a series of videos that showed ablution and the burial Geelani being carried out by locals, policemen and a few relatives. No journalists were allowed to cover the burial and were kept 300 meters away from the graveyard on that night.
The Kashmir Walla also reported outside sequence of that night in Hyderpora, where police asked journalists that they are not allowed.
