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| 17 December 2004 | Friday | 04 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
Geelani barred from going to Makkah
SRINAGAR, Dec 16: Indian authorities have for the fourth consecutive year refused to allow a Kashmiri separatist leader and his wife to travel to Saudi Arabia for the Haj pilgrimage, officials said on Thursday.
Syed Ali Geelani, applied to the government of occupied Kashmir for permission to perform Haj. "A top Kashmiri bureaucrat dealing with Haj affairs informed Geelani over telephone that he and his wife have not been cleared for the Haj trip," Geelani's close aide and private secretary, Mohammed Yusuf Mujahid told AFP.
Applications of Mr Geelani, his wife and 40 other separatist activists were turned down. A state official told AFP that Geelani's name figured on a list of several dozen people barred from the pilgrimage.
Geelani has been in and out of Indian jails over the past decade for his vehement opposition to New Delhi's rule in Kashmir. "This is a major curb on our religious rights and an act of political vengeance," Mr Mujahid said, adding it was the fourth such refusal.
India impounded Geelani's passport in the early 1990s and has not allowed him to leave the country since. Breaking ranks with moderate separatists in September 2003, Mr Geelani has defended the armed revolt that erupted against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1989. He leads a hard line wing of the separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). -AFP
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