In its bid to stir up international opinion on Kashmir, Pakistan has sought an ‘impartial but immediate” investigation into the death of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, despite the Indian authorities saying he died of natural causes.

Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Pakistan-ruled Azad Kashmir (which India calls Pak Occupied Kashmir) Shehryar Khan Afridi wrote letters to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and high commissioner of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Michelle Jeria, calling for the probe, describing the 92-year-old pro-Pakistan leader’s death as a” custodial killing”.  

He also alleged that Geelani’s body had been desecrated.

Talking to reporters after delivering the letters to the United Nations Military Observers’ Group in Pakistan (UNMOGIP), Afridi said the UN secretary-general must order an immediate investigation into the ‘custodial killing”.

Member of the committee Senator Sarfraz Bugti besides Hurriyat Conference leaders Faiz Naqshbandi and Farooq Rehmani were also present on the occasion.

He also alleged that Geelani’s long-time comrade and successor, Tehreek-i-Hurriyat Chairman Mohammad Ashraf Khan Sehrai, was also killed in custody earlier this year.

“This loss may turn out to obstruct Kashmiri people’s voice and compromise their long struggle for freedom,” he said, reported Dawn.

Earlier, a top police officer of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir dismissed as “baseless” the allegations “leveled by some vested interests”.

Inspector-General of Police (Kashmir) Vijay Kumar said: “The reported allegations against the police are baseless. In fact, police facilitated in bringing the body from his house to the graveyard as there was apprehension that miscreants may take undue advantage of the situation. Relatives participated in the last rites."

In a statement, Jammu and Kashmir Police said “some vested interests” were trying to “spread baseless rumors about a forcible burial”.

The statement said such “baseless reports” were part of “false propaganda to incite violence”, being spread by “anti-national elements, especially across the border, who are trying to take undue advantage of the situation”, according to Indian Express.

(SAM)