Kashmiri separatist leader Geelani is issued Indian passport of short validity

Srinagar: Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been issued a passport, almost seven weeks after giving his biometric data and completing other formalities at the Regional Passport Office (RPO) here.

Confirming it, Regional Passport Officer, Srinagar Firdous Iqbal, told this newspaper, “Yes, he has been issued a passport and it was dispatched by post today (Tuesday) only.”

But Mr. Geelani’s close aide and party spokesman Ayaz Akbar while speaking on behalf of the octogenarian separatist leader said, “We have neither been informed about issuing of passport to him nor have we received it.”

Sources in the RPO said Mr. Geelani has been issued a short validity passport, necessarily to enable him to travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to see his ailing daughter Farhat Jabeen. Mr. Geelani, who earlier had passport in 2007, 2008 and 2011, had applied for the travel document in May this year.

The issuing of passport to the separatist leader had snowballed into a controversy following statements on the issue from various political parties and leaders including Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar who had said that all separatists should be allowed to apply for Indian passports as that would be the “first round of victory”. He had said, “On philosophical level, if he (Mr. Geelani) applies for it, then in the nationality column he would have to write ‘Indian’. So that is the first round of victory over him as he does not consider himself an Indian.”

But Mr. Geelani initially left the nationality column in the passport application form blank. Later on June 5 he visited the RPO here to submit his bio-metric data. While doing it, he declared himself as an Indian but soon reiterated that travelling abroad on an Indian passport was a compulsion and that he was not an Indian by birth. “I’m not an Indian by birth. Ours’ is an occupied land and getting an Indian passport for travelling abroad is a compulsion,” he had told reporters on emerging of the passport office along Boulevard here.

Mr. Geelani falls in the Prior Approval Category (PAC) for issuing the passport to him.