Never been able to shake off Dec 13

On December 18, 2002, the media glare swung back on Geelani when he—and co-accused Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Guru—were sentenced to death by POTA judge Shiv Narain Dhingra. Guru’s wife, Afsan, who had already given birth to a child in jail, was given five years’ rigorous imprisonment.

With the country watching, Geelani maintained a stoic silence unlike his co-accused when judge Dhingra read out his sentence.

Even then, there was a buzz of intrigue surrounding Geelani’s involvement in the case after he complained during the trial that he was attacked with blades by a fellow prisoner in Tihar jail and alleged that somebody was conspiring to kill him.

Also deposing during the trial, his wife claimed the police had framed Geelani, while narrating the alleged torture meted out to him by various security agencies.

Unfazed by the POTA court verdict, Geelani knocked at the doors of Delhi High Court—his well-wishers had already set up an ‘All India Defence Committee’. In High Court, Geelani claimed the trial court had erred in its judgement by relying on a 2.16 minute conversation between him and his 18-year-old younger brother Shah Faizal Geelani a day after the Parliament attack.

While the police had relied on this conversation to show that Geelani knew about the attack, the professor claimed the chat was an innocuous family interaction.

Finally, the High Court allowed the appeal, acquitting him and Afsan Guru on October 29, 2003, following which the Delhi police moved the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, controversy continued to shadow the professor. In August 2004, student unions and Delhi University authorities refused permission for a poster exhibition on Geelani, titled, ‘Lies of Our Times’ to showcase his tryst with justice.

Later that month, he was heckled and his car attacked at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) where he had arrived to deliver a public speech.

Today, the cameras were back again, after the bullets.