Geelani compares Omar’s Twitter “lie” with ‘Goebbelsian propaganda’

Srinagar: Taking a sharp dig at Omar Abdullah’s claim on micro-blogging site Twitter that not a single innocent person or minor from Kashmir was behind the bars, Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani Monday said the chief minister had “surpassed Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in dissipating lies.”

“The brazenness with which Omar Abdullah has given this extra-ordinary statement suggests that either he is a lier or he has been kept in the dark by his sub-ordinates about the arrest of 4000 people since last June, who were incarnated in jails during the NC-led government just because of a different political belief,” he said.

Citing the examples of Majid-Ullah, 15, from Sarai Bala, Umar Hameed, 16, from Zaina Kadal and 13-year-old Bashir Ahmad Ganai from HMT Zainakote, Geelani said the “majority of the detained people are below the age of 18.”

Reacting sharply to the chief minister’s statement in which he had denied army’s reported role in floating pro-India parties, Geelani said the state government’s writ “runs between secretariat and assembly and it’s the army which  runs the show in Kashmir.”

“The state is virtually by the army and police; they are above any law and carry out all political and non-political activities in the state,” Geelani said in a statement issued by the amalgam to.

He said on one hand New Delhi had given police and army free hand to crush the people’s movement while on the other “National Conference has confined its entire politics to getting pro-freedom youth arrested.”

“NC has no political programme of its own and it doesn’t want to give any space to the pro-freedom politics here . In this scenario, Indian army wanting to create political parties should not come as a surprise to anybody,” he said.

Alleging that the army had enforced a ban on religious gatherings in Kupwara, Geelani said an FIR had been lodged against a girl running an Islamic seminary in Thandi Pora area of the north Kashmir district.

“The Army has ordered the Islamic seminary’s closure,” he alleged.