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Times of India
An arrest overdue
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Neither the arrest of the former All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman, Syed Ali Geelani, nor his reported proximity to Islamabad has come as a surprise. If at all, the only puzzling question would relate to why it took so long to put him behind bars, despite his close links with terror groups and his continuous tirade against the Indian State.
It should be clearly understood that the decision to arrest Geelani-who has long achieved notoriety more as a rabble-rouser than as a leader of the Kashmiri people-was not a political one. By no stretch of imagination could he be called a popular leader. His claim to fame has been his continuing diatribe against India and, therefore, he could have been booked for treason even earlier. He was never a mass leader; if people listened to him, it was for his rabid views. Besides spitting venom, he had done little for the people of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). It is, therefore, not surprising that his popularity is confined to Srinagar and the Pakistan High Commission compound in New Delhi.
On the political level, he has been playing a destructive role- scuttling, at the behest of Islamabad, peace initiatives emanating from New Delhi. His association with the powers that be in Pakistan was thus entirely to be expected. There is credible evidence that he has been propped up by the Inter-Services Intelligence to stoke secessionist fires in J&K. He has proved in the past to be a willing tool in the hands of Islamabad to embarrass the Government of this country. During the Agra Summit, he was keen to gatecrash the conference in order to shake hands with the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf; not gaining entry, he got himself and the remaining APHC flock invited to a tea party at the Pakistan High Commission. The motive was simply to spite India. Since then, he has been making efforts to sabotage the Government's initiatives to create an atmosphere conducive to peace in J&K, such as when he put a spanner in the talks with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's envoy, Mr KC Pant. Again, when the Government announced elections to the State Assembly, he came up with the mischievous idea of setting up an independent Election Commission with members from J&K and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He even forced the APHC to announce the representatives of such a sham entity. It is not difficult to guess on whose orders Geelani has been operating.
Nevertheless, the arrest exposes one of Geelani's lesser-known functions as a conduit for financing terror groups operating in J&K. Revelations concerning the property he owns and the amount of money he has stashed in different bank accounts, would point to his hand in financing terror, a charge warranting arrest under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act. Investigating agencies should also find out whether he had any role to play in the transfer of funds to the terrorist groups responsible for the December 13 attack on Parliament. The revelations cover only a part of Geelani's activities. Investigations to unearth the rest must be accompanied by pressure on foreign governments, particularly that of the United Kingdom, to clamp down on people abroad who have been sending money through hawala channels to fund terrorism.
