Geelani making false claims of detention to create unrest in Valley: Omar Abdullah

NEW DELHI - Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is making false claims of being detained by the Delhi Police to create unrest in the Valley.

Abdullah said the separatist leader has been only asked by the Delhi police to be available for questioning in money laundering case and nothing more.

Refuting Geelani’s statement on being detained, Abdullah said Geelani is playing the situation to create disturbance and trouble in the valley.

“Nobody has been detained in Delhi, he is free to leave Delhi as soon as he likes. All he has to do is record his statement because he has alleged to have been the recipient of money that was being transported under the Hawala route. If he gives his statement today, he can catch the train this evening and be in Jammu by tomorrow morning,” Abdullah told reporters outside the office of the Ministry of Home Affairs after his meeting with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.

“I think he is just, unfortunately, trying to play this up so that he can create some sort of disturbances and trouble in the valley. Fortunately the valley people are wiser than that, my own advice to him would be that he should go and record his statement as quickly as possible, so that he can come back to valley; the weather in the valley is nice now,” he added.

The recently exposed Hawala trail has placed certain senior leaders of the separatist outfit Hurriyat Conference under the scanner of Revenue Intelligence and allied officials.

When questioned about his meeting with Chidambaram, Abdullah said the meeting was generally to review the situation in state and discuss on the fifth round of Kashmir interlocutors visit in the state.

“The interlocutors have begun their fifth round of visit to the state, and obviously their report is also keenly awaited, so there were some points regarding that which needed to be discussed. Overall it was just a review of the situation in the state and also discussions vis-a-vis the preparation for our assembly session,” he said.

The three-member panel comprising Dileep Padgaonkar, M M Ansari and Prof Radha Kumar have extended several invitations to the separatist groups to join the talks but up till now all of them stand futile as Miwaiz Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani are demanding to implement their five point agenda first. (ANI)