Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat was held here on Thursday at the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Chairman Committee Senator Rana Maqbool Ahmed. At the outset of the meeting, all the participants expressed deep sorrow and grief on the sad demise of Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani. Chairman Committee Senator Rana Maqbool Ahmed and members of the committee paid homage to the services of Syed Ali Geelani and said that today we have lost the great leader of Tehreek-e-Azadi Kashmir. The meeting of the standing committee passed a unanimous resolution on the services of Syed Ali Geelani and also offered Fateha for the elevation of the departed soul.
Geelani had been a thorn in India’s side since the early 1960s when he began campaigning for the territory’s merger with Pakistan. He also pursued his separatist calls as a member of the Kashmir assembly. The veteran politician was jailed for nearly 10 years after 1962 and was often restricted to his home after that. Since his youth, Geelani had been a member of Jamaat-i-Islami, the largest political-religious organisation in occupied Kashmir that was banned by India’s Hindu nationalist government in 2019.
He rejected any notion of direct talks with the New Delhi government unless it formally “accepts Kashmir as a disputed territory” and stopped describing the region as an “integral part of India”. Indian governments of all political colours have insisted on sovereignty over occupied Kashmir. Geelani was also a staunch critic of the sporadic but failed attempts at dialogue between India and Pakistan. His hardline stance also had critics in occupied Kashmir.
Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of occupied Kashmir, said on Twitter: “We may not have agreed on most things but I respect him for his steadfastness and standing by his beliefs.”
Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir is one of the world’s most militarised zones, with 500,000 Indian security forces deployed in the region. Tens of thousands, mainly civilians, have died since an insurgency erupted in 1989.
