Geelani's biographer arrested for conviction in Wanchoo murder

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

Srinagar May 10: Lecturer of Department of Persian in University of Kashmir, Dr Mohammad Shafi Khan, has been arrested by Special Operation Group (SOG) Srinagar after evading arrest for more than seven years. Dr Khan, who assumed the pseudonym of Dr Shafi Shariati, and shot into prominence with his biography on the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Geelani, had jumped the bail and gone underground after Supreme Court of India held him guilty and awarded him life term in Hriday Nath Wanchoo assassination case.

Even as Geelani has raised the issue of Khan's "kidnapping" through repetitive statements since earlier this week and Government has maintained total silence and ignored the allegation, informed sources revealed to Early Times that the fugitive separatist ideologue has been arrested by SOG sleuths from his Srinagar hideout.

None of the Police officials was available for comment. SSP Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, picked up the phone but insisted that he could talk only after he was free from an official meeting late tonight. He did not respond till filing of this report.

A resident of Haari Wanin village in Khansahab- Beerwah belt of Budgam district, Khan had joined PG Department of Persian after completing his Ph D in Persian literature in late 1980s. In 1991, he joined radical militant outfit, Jamiatul Mujahideen, founded by his neighbour, Hilal Ahmed Mir alias Nasirul Islam of Rawalpora Beerwah village. Nasirul Islam had launched JuM after he functioned as Hizbul Mujahideen's first chief (Amir-e-Aala) in 1990-91 but broke away with co-founders of Hizb over the move of declaring Hizb as the guerrilla arm of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Ideological hardliner JuM professed what officials called intellectual terrorism. JuM chief Ashiq Hussain Faktoo alias Dr Qasim, who is also detained Dukhtaraan-e-Millat founder Chairperson Asiya Andrabi's husband, was arrested and tried, alongwith Dr Shafi Khan, for the duo's alleged involvement in the 1993 assassination of noted human rights activist, H N Wanchoo, at Balgarden Karan Nagar, just 200 yards from DGP's office.

Both the accused succeeded in getting released on bail from J&K High Court. Even as Dr Khan went underground, Faktoo alias Dr Qasim was arrested at IGI Airport on his arrival from London in 1999. Dr Farooq Abdullah's government went in appeal against High Court judgment to Supreme Court and pursued the matter assiduously till the apex court declared Faktoo and Khan guilty and awarded them both with imprisonment. Faktoo has been continuously in jail since 1999. During his imprisonment in Srinagar Central Jail, he has completed his Ph D in Islamic Studies.

Dr Khan surfaced and joined back his position at University of Kashmir when Prof M Y Qadiri was the Vice Chancellor. He however went permanently underground after the apex court pronounced the judgment. Sources at KU said that Dr Khan's job remained intact till date but he never turned up at the campus.

Dr Khan shot into prominence when Hr published Geelani's biography in Urdu, titled "Syed Ali Geelani: Aek Tehreek, Aek Tareekh" in 2009. The book became highly controversial as Dr Shafi Shariati described Geelani as a charismatic leader and separatist icon but unleashed virulent criticism over Jamaat-e-Islami's act of isolating Geelani during the Hurriyat split in 2003. He viewed it as strengthening of the Indian "occupation" on Jammu and Kashmir.

Geelani broke away from Jamaat after over 50 years of his association with the organisation in 2004 and floated his own Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, principal constituent of Hurriyat (G).

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