Srinagar, Mar 23(KMW): Hurriyat Conference(G) Chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani has served a legal notice to national newspaper ‘The Times of India’ for allegedly defaming him by ‘frivolous and fictitious’ news report.
The defamation suit alleged that the national newspaper in its March 14 Delhi edition published a mischievous and baseless report about Geelani, in which an attempt was made with a bad intention to cause harm to his esteem, his dignity and his reputation among general public.
They said a 12th student allegedly shot herself with a weaon in her house at Batpora in the frontier district of Kupwara. However, other family members immediately rushed to her Handwara hospital from where she was referred to Srinagar in a critical condition.
It was not immediately clear from where she had got the weapon, they said adding police have registered a case and initiated proceedings.
Geelani’s council, in the legal notice issued to newspaper, has said that his client is the chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference and at the same time chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat as well as a well known personality in the Asian sub-continent.
The legal notice has challenged report of the newspaper that when Geelani was leaving for New Delhi to undergo treatment, ‘he was driven to the tarmac and taken towards the aircraft on a wheelchair but the 83-year-old climbed up the stairs of the plane without support.’
The council has also termed the report of the newspaper that Geelani has nominated his son as his successor, which has disappointed the hardcore section of the party, as baseless.
He has stated in the notice that this is a baseless story and it is a deliberate attempt to defame the Geelani and his family.
Hurriyat spokesperson said all Parties Hurriyat Conference and Tehreek-Hurriyat are two different organizations, who have their own constitution, function according to their constitutions and both the organisations don’t support successor system.
The defamation suit has been filed against Times of India, its general editor, editor and its reporter in Jammu and Kashmir Saleem Pandith.
