DM Monitoring
SRINAGAR: Authorities have enforced a security lockdown and a near-total communications blackout for a second straight day in Indian Occupied Kashmir after the death of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a top resistance leader who became the emblem of the region’s defiance against New Delhi’s rule.
Geelani’s death at the age of 91 on Wednesday night and the ensuing crackdown on public movement and communications by the Indian authorities highlight the turmoil seething in the Himalayan region. Wearing flak jackets and riot gear, armed police and paramilitary personnel on Friday patrolled the streets in Srinagar, the region’s main city, and ordered residents to stay indoors.
Razor wire, steel barricades and perpendicularly parked armored vehicles blocked some streets and roads in the city as officials anticipated anti-India protests after weekly congregational Friday prayers. With multiple ailments and under house arrest for years, Geelani was quietly buried by the Indian authorities without any family members present after police snatched his body, his son, Naseem Geelani said.
Police in a statement denied Geelani’s forcible burial and called it “baseless rumours” by “some vested interests”. Many mosques in the Muslim-majority region announced that they would say special prayers for Geelani.
