92-year-old Syed Ali Shah Gee­lani, a gi­ant of Kash­miri free­dom strug­gle, un­com­pro­mis­ing leader, the dar­ling of the Kash­miri youth, a prick­ing thorn for In­dia, passed away un­der house ar­rest for many years. Sikh po­lit­i­cal body Dal Khalsa pays a warm trib­ute to the de­parted soul, mourns his demise, ex­presses deep sym­pa­thies with his wife, chil­dren, thou­sands of fol­low­ers and con­demns the forced state bur­ial of the vet­eran leader in the mid­dle of the night.

DAL KHALSA, in a state­ment, has ex­pressed deep grief at the pass­ing away of vet­eran Kash­miri leader Syed Ali Shah Gee­lani and held the rulers in Delhi re­spon­si­ble for his slow death as he had been un­der house ar­rest since 2008.

Party spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said, ‘Peo­ple in Pun­jab ad­mired him for his vi­sion and strong de­ter­mi­na­tion to fight against op­pres­sion and New Del­hi’s hege­mony.” 

“Gee­lani Sahib sym­bol­ised Kash­mir’s free­dom move­ment but earned re­spect out­side Kash­mir too, for which the peo­ple of Kash­mir must feel proud,” reads the con­do­lence mes­sage.

Dal Khalsa called him a friend of Sikhs and a staunch sup­porter of the on­go­ing peace­ful strug­gle for Pun­jab’s in­de­pen­dence through the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. 

“We have had a long and close as­so­ci­a­tion with Gee­lani Sahib and the Hur­riyat Con­fer­ence,” said Dal Khalsa pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema. Re­call­ing his affin­ity with Sikhs, he re­mem­bered the words of the vet­eran Kash­miri gi­ant, “Iss Sanjh Ko Ba­naye Rakhna hai -let’s main­tain this unity” when they vis­ited him in June 2015. 

Even while un­der house ar­rest, he was out­spo­ken and in his video mes­sage which has gone vi­ral, he is heard telling the se­cu­rity forces to open the doors of his locked house, say­ing, “Dar­waja kholo, hin­dus­tan ki ja­muriyat ka janaza nikl rha hai. -Open the door and let me wit­ness the fu­neral pro­ces­sion of In­dian democ­racy.”

Com­ing down heav­ily on the In­dian gov­ern­ment for snap­ping the in­ter­net, clamp­ing cur­few, im­pos­ing re­stric­tions on me­dia, and peo­ples move­ment, in­clud­ing not al­low­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in their lead­ers’ last rites, party spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said by in­dulging in quick buri­als and cre­ma­tions, In­dia will not be able to hide the truth in Kash­mir for long.

Un­doubt­edly, a vet­eran has passed away, but his mis­sion lives on!