City Muslims support Kashmiri Pandits

Hurriyat leader heckled at press conference in Delhi

Hurriyat leader heckled at press conference in Delhi

Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani had an agenda on his Delhi visit. Sadly, for him, he would have to remain an unsatisfied man.Though it was not the first time that somebody tried to communalise the Kashmir issue, it was probably the first time by somebody from the Hurriyat.

Face Off: Protesters shout slogans and scuffle at a press conference by
Chairman of the hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah
Geelani, in New Delhi on Thursday. pic/Imtiyaz khan

However, Geelani's evil designs not just met with shoe that was hurled at him at a meeting in the national capital. He also got a rude shock when people from the Muslim community showed up with a group of Kashmiri Pandits who reached a seminar at the LTG Auditorium on Copernicus Marg, being attended by Geelani and Naxal supporters like Arundhati Roy.

Nasim Akhtar, 40, is one of the city Muslims who had joined the representatives of the displaced community in protesting against the Hurriyat hardliner.Parliament attack accused Prof SAR Geelani had organised the seminar and the subject was Kashmir's 'azaadi'.

"These Pandits are living with me for the last many years. I can understand their pain of being separated from their motherland. The separatists have done great injustice with them. Even if they want a free Kashmir, it could not be made on the basis of religious discrimination," Akhtar, leader of a traders association in Karol Bagh, told MiD DAY.

"People like Geelani must know that divisive agenda cannot succeed," he said. Akhtar said he wanted Geelani to know that what he was doing is wrong. "They breathe in India's air, they wear clothes made in India, they eat food grown in India, the live on Indian land then how could they talk against India. If they want to quit India then I dare them to stop using everything that is Indian."

Silent Protest?

Before his address to the gathering, Syed Ali Shah Geelani asked the participants to observer a two-minute silence to commemorate the 'martyrs'. However, instead of following his request, several people started asking who was he referring to as 'martyrs', the armymen or the militants.
But after a few speeches some young Hurriyat supporters started shouting slogans against Indian Army.

Theatre of Absurd

While the conference was going on peacefully some of the Kashmiri Pandits started shouting and the cops posted on the venue pulled out the agitators.
After a few moments some shouts were heard from inside the auditorium, the cops again rushed in but they found nothing. As they came out again they heard some fierce conversation and shouts.
The cops again rushed in but again they found nothing inside, the cops were clueless but then a private security guard at the LTG auditorium appeared and told them that the noise was caused due to the rehearsal by some National School of Drama (NSD) students on the first floor.