Authorities Sunday foiled the proposed seminar of Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Geelani.Geelani had appealed people to participate in the seminar titled “Islam – The Protector of Humanity” (Islam-Insaniyat Ka Muhafiz) where prominent Islamic scholars, intellectuals and separatist leaders were supposed to present their view point over the topic.
Reports reached to KNS that police did not allow anyone to enter Geelani’s residence, the venue of the seminar. “Police had sealed even Airport Road and a large contingent of policemen in riot gears was deployed around Geelani’s residence that stopped participants of the seminar from entering the venue,” eye witnesses told KNS.While talking to KNS over phone, Hurriyat Conference’s chief spokesman, Ayaz Akbar termed the banning of seminar as 'nonsense' and said that it has been proved that Chief Minister, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s battle of ideas were fake.
“The government is using their forces to curb the voices of people in the Valley, which is unfortunate,” Ayaz said.“Police had sealed even Airport Road and a large contingent of policemen in riot gears was deployed around Geelani Sahab’s residence that stopped participants of the seminar from entering the venue. Those stopped included party activists, journalists, Islamic jurists, civil society members, lawyers and people from all walks . The domestic workers of Geelani were also not allowed to enter the house,” he said.“Almost every senior leaders of Hurriyat (G) were placed under house arrest while hundreds of participants came to attend the seminar but unfortunately they were not allowed to enter the scheduled venue of seminar. “The seminar was neither supposed to violate any law nor was meant to hamper the traffic in the area but despite that government used its forces to curb the voices of people,” he said.
He termed the actions of the authorities as 'state terrorism' and said that it won’t prove anything but can only attract the freedom fighters more to raise their voices against the ‘deplorable behavior’ of the state authorities.He said that such actions and the ‘cruelty’ of the state government is condemnable and said that this was not the first time that Geelani Sahab was barred from organizing a seminar.Condemning the police action, Akbar said, “Government is scared of this sacred freedom struggle and it is not providing any space to us. Repression and oppression will not stop us from taking this freedom struggle to its logical conclusion,” Akbar said. (KNS)