SRINAGAR: Former Jammu and Kashmir DGP S P Vaid alleged that previous governments had given preferential treatment to separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, who resigned from the All-Party Hurriyat Conference on Monday.
Talking to this newspaper, Vaid said when he was injured in a militant attack on March 23, 1999 when he was DIG Baramulla, he was shifted to army hospital in Srinagar and later his family took him to Delhi, where he underwent treatment. “We were left to fend for ourselves for treatment in Delhi,” he said.
In contrast, when Geelani used to fall ill, the government used to airlift him to Mumbai in special planes. He said when Geelani was diagnosed with malignancy during his detention in Ranchi jail in 2003, he was flown to Mumai hospital on a state plane. Geelani, Vaid said, was again flown to a Mumbai hospital from Srinagar in 2007.
“See how our soldiers are treated. Is this fair?” he asked. Vaid called Geelani “the Akka of separatism, motivator of terrorists and the Pakistan ISI’s pointman in the Kashmir Valley.” The incumbent DGP Dilbag Singh said Geelani’s resignation was an admission that he was wrong and had portrayed a negative mindset. He claimed that Geelani had admitted in a letter to all his constituents that the path chosen by him was wrong and people were using it for personal gains.
“He has admitted that they have miserably failed in their mission and the Kashmir issue was used by people for their personal gains. He has confessed that his path was wrong and they were propagating a negative thinking,” added Singh.