In a new low, Indian agencies harass families of freedom leaders in Occupied Kashmir
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SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir - The families of pro-independence leaders in Jammu and Kashmir are being harassed by Indian authorities as a clampdown on the decades-old resistance movement in the region intensifies in the aftermath of a deadly bombing earlier this year.
Anees Shah, grandson of Kashmir’s top resistance leader Syed Ali Geelani, has been summoned by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday in the capital New Delhi for interrogation.
He works as a research officer at a conference center in Kashmir. His father, Altaf Ahmad Shah, has been jailed pending trial in New Delhi’s Tihar prison for nearly two years.
“My grandfather is in politics. My father is in politics. But I have never been in active politics, and when the Indian government cannot break down my family through imprisonment, they come down at us,” Anees told Anadolu Agency.
His father and several other resistance leaders have been imprisoned in a 2017 case which accuses them of raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means for funding anti-India activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The NIA raided our house, they took all the documents, and they found nothing there. The case against my father is a flimsy one, but the point of it is only to harass us and weaken my family’s resolve,” he said.
He went on to say that earlier, his uncles, sons of Syed Ali Geelani, were summoned by the investigation agency to answer questions and now they are coming for the grandchildren.
