Police in Indian-occupied Kashmir have registered a case against the family members of late resistance leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani under a harsh anti-terror law for allegedly raising anti-India slogans and wrapping his body in the Pakistani flag.
Geelani, who died on Wednesday at the age of 91, was the emblem of Kashmir’s freedom struggle against New Delhi and had been under house arrest for years. The officials said they opened the case on Sunday.
His son, Naseem, told Al Jazeera the Indian authorities buried Geelani’s body in a local cemetery without any family members present after police snatched his body from the home. Police denied that and called it “baseless rumours” by “some vested interests”.
A video widely shared on social media purportedly showed Geelani’s relatives, mostly women, frantically trying to prevent armed police from forcing their way into the room where his body, wrapped in a Pakistani flag, was being kept.
The video showed women wailing and screaming as police took the body and locked his family and relatives inside the room.
Police said they registered a case against unspecified family members and some others on Saturday and began probing the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA. They have not yet been taken into custody.
In India, booking of a case by the police may not necessarily lead to a formal charge but is an incident that is officially recorded.
Critics say bookings under the vaguely worded UAPA legislation have been used across the country to intimidate or silence opposing voices, calling the law draconian.
The anti-terror law was amended in 2019 to allow the government to designate an individual as a terrorist. Police can detain a person for six months without producing any evidence, and the accused can subsequently be imprisoned for up to seven years.
Geelani’s son Naseem said a police officer visited the family on Saturday and informed them a case had been registered. Naseem did not provide further details about the meeting but said the police removed his father’s body by force.
