Ravi Pujari threat childish, says Geelani party

The Hurriyat Conference faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani has shrugged off the threat issued by fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari to him off, saying the separatist leader cannot be brow-beaten by anyone. “Geelani Sahib is not a person who will fear the spineless threats of Pujari-like people. He will continue to pursue the Kashmir cause the way he had been doing for the past five decades, and for which as many as 18 murderous assaults were made on him,” it said.

Pujari has threatened to eliminate the leader physically if he “continues to provoke JNU students against India”. “I’ve left my contact number with Geelani’s office for the purpose of making him clear (sic) not to incite the JNU students and youngsters against the country. For now I’m just giving him a warning, but next time I will shoot him to death,” he was quoted as saying.

Earlier Mr Geelani had, while condemning the arrest of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and his comrades and registration of sedition charges against Valley-born Prof. S.A.R. Geelani and some other students, said the action was “totally against the democratic claims of India and freedom of expression” and a “grave injustice” as “it has no constitutional and legal justification”.

Geelani’s aide and spokesman of the Hurriyat Conference faction, Ayaz Akbar, said in a statement here on Saturday, “Whether it is Indian home minister Rajnath Singh or a Ravi Pujari-like uncivilised criminal, in short intolerance in India is rising day by day and the lives, property and the honour of minorities, particularly Muslims, in this country are facing an acute threat (sic).”

Akbar confirmed that Pujari called on the land line number of Geelani’s party office at Hyderpora, Srinagar, at about 8.45 pm on Friday and “talked in uncivilised and abusive language”. The spokesman said the underworld don then himself confirmed the threat call to a private news channel and publicly threatened to kill Mr Geelani. “No power in the world can harm Geelani Sahib till he is protected by Almighty Allah, and despite all these threats he will continue to pursue his stand and he will continue with his struggle for the liberation of Kashmir from Indian occupation,” the spokesman said.

He also said that the threat statement on a TV channel by an underground gangster raises many questions and that “it clearly indicates that he has some way got the sponsorship of the Indian government and the communal forces of this country, and his sudden intervention in the Kashmir issue is not meaningless”. The Hurriyat spokesman said Pujari “is a third-grade uncivilised goon and his threat to kill someone is not extraordinary or surprising, but the matter of concern is the rising intolerance in India which claims to be the largest democracy in the world. And a more serious matter is that everybody — from ministers to peons, from the defence minister to home minister — in this country has started to speak in the same language in which the Pujari-like people are talking.”

“This situation rings alarm bells for the minorities and lower-caste Hindus and they strongly feel unsafe in this country,” Mr Akbar, said adding that although Mr Geelani has not taken the threat issued by Pujari seriously, and has termed it a childish act, the Indian government will be directly responsible for anything unpleasant that comes to him and will be answerable for it. He said the Hurriyat Conference faction is, meanwhile, planning to consult legal experts on the issue.