Srinagar, June 2: Despite claim of the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, that he would not make his bete noire, Chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G), Syed Ali Shah Geelani a “hero” by imposing restrictions on him, the veteran leader has been repeatedly placed under house arrest. 
 Omar last month had twitted that his decision to detain Geelani in the past could have made him into a hero. “While I appreciate some people will have issues with my decision to allow SASG (Geelani) to roam freely today, I'm done making him a hero on my time,” Omar had twitted while defending his decision to allow Geelani to lead funeral prayers in absentia of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden on May 7 here. 
 Omar had also maintained that had Geelani not been allowed to move freely on Friday, he would have claimed that thousands would have turned out to attend his prayer meeting. “And those of you waxing eloquent about SASG and his prayers are strangely silent when it's done in Calcutta," the tweet further read.
 However, since May 7, the Hurriyat (G) claims that Geelani has been put under house arrest on Fridays. The conglomerate’s spokesman, Ayaz Akbar said authorities placed Geelani under house arrest on Friday, May 13 to prevent him from launching a campaign to seek release of political prisoners, in south Kashmir’s Shopian district.  Geelani was again placed under house arrest on May 20 and May 27 to thwart his rallies at Islamabad and Hazratbal as part of the amalgam’s campaign against “illegal detention and ill-treatment of political prisoners in jails.”
 Geelani was again placed under house arrest on the occasion of 2nd anniversary of Shopian tragedy on May 30.
 “Since January this year, Geelani Sahib was free for only 27 days. For rest of the days, he was placed under house arrest and his movement was restricted. We have already filed a writ petition in the High Court against Geelani Sahib’s repeated house arrest. We will fight the case legally,” Akbar said.
 ’Incidentally, when Delhi Police confined Geelani’s to his flat at Malviya Nagar on February 23, Omar had accused him of making “false claims with an aim to create disturbance in the Valley.”
“Geelani is completely free and he takes his morning walks regularly. All Geelani has been told is to not leave the city until he records his statement in connection with the alleged Hawala case.
He can go anytime he wishes to. Let him record his statement today and board a train to Jammu and catch next morning’s flight to Srinagar. The weather in the Valley is very nice,” Omar had stated.
A member of Amnesty International, Bikramjeet Batra during a visit to Geelani’s house on May 25, had taken strong exception to the veteran leader’s “illegal detention.”
Batra had asked the police to show the formal order under which Geelani was not allowed to move outside his house. However, the policemen posted outside the house said they had served no order but were ‘following the orders of their superiors. Later police had lifted the house arrest for a few days.
Pertinently, Geelani was imprisoned under Public Safety Act for nearly 40-days last year. After his release, he was continuously kept under house arrest for 140 days without giving him grounds of detention.  Geelani, who is suffering with various ailments, had left for New Delhi on January 27 for medical check-up. On February 20, the Delhi Police had barred Geelani from leaving New Delhi without recording his statement in the Hawala case. On Hurriyat (G)’s call, Kashmir has observed a complete shutdown on February 22 to protest against curbs on Geelani’s movement.
A special team of Delhi Police had detained Geelani at the Delhi Airport on March 1 when he was on way to board a flight to Srinagar. However, he was released after questioning at Lodhi Road Police Station.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 2 Jun 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 2 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 3 Jun 2011 00:00:00 IST