At condolence meet, Geelani hits out at Azad

It was a condolence visit that Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had never expected.

It was a condolence visit that Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had never expected. Half-an-hour after he left his in-laws’ house at an upscale Srinagar colony, where his father-in-law passed away on Sunday, separatist hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani showed up to commiserate with the family.

However, Geelani didn’t limit his visit to condolence alone. He went on to deliver a hard-hitting speech against ruling Congress, which he blamed for being responsible for the ills of Kashmiris leaving the mourners shocked and baffled. “I am not here to appease anyone. I don’t want to appease the Chief Minister or anybody else. I am not here to play any politics,” Geelani addressed the people, which included second rung Congress leaders as well.

“Dev sahib (Mohammad Abdullah Dev) was a dear friend. He was a neighbhour and when I was ill, he used to enquire about my health frequently. I have come here to express condolence with his family.”

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However, the hardliner separatist leader didn’t refrain from delivering a hard-hitting speech against Dev’s son-in-law and Chief Minister Azad. “The world is purely divided into two groups— the oppressor and the oppressed,” he said. “The Muslims across the globe are oppressed and those who support them are also responsible for it.” Geelani lashed out at the Azad-led Government for “letting loose terror” in the Valley.

Without naming Azad, Geelani said his party was responsible for tragedies faced by the people of Kashmir. And as Geelani addressed the Assembly, the mainstream leaders who had come to offer condolence listened with silence.

The Hurriyat hardliner, later, prayed for the peace of the departed soul. Geelani, in fact, isn’t the first separatist leader to offer condolences to the family of Dev. On Sunday, Javeed Ahmad Mir, Shahid-ul-Islam and Zafar Akbar Bhat turned up at the funeral prayer of Dev along with a host of mainstream leaders.