Shoe-thrower says DIG asked him to name Geelani, Mufti

After Govt’s send off at PCR, Jan gets separatists’ reception in Bandipore

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Aug 18: Shoe-throwing celebrity and suspended Police official, head constable Abdul Ahad Jan, has made a turnabout and praised hardliner separatist Syed Ali Shah Gelani, as also his political cause, a day after his meeting with Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, here on Tuesday. This, within hours of his getting a warm send-off from Chief Minister’s Advisor, Mubarak Gul, at Police Control Room in the capital city today.

Obviously on Mr Abdullah’s direction, senior National Conference leader and Advisor to Chief Minister, Mubarak Gul, today handed over 53-year-old Abdul Ahad Jan to his family members and relatives at Police Hospital on the PCR premises.

“A warm send off was given to the suspended Head Constable, Mr. Abdul Ahad Jan at Police Control Room here. Advisor to Chief Minister, Mr. Mubarak Gul saw him off in presence of police officers and kith and kin of Ahad Jan. Ahad Jan was handed over to his family members and other relatives, who had turned up to receive him following the Chief Minister’s decision to pardon Ahad Jan and withdraw case against him”, an official press release from the state government said.

It added: “Earlier, the Chief Minister Mr. Omar Abdullah had called Mr. Jan to his residence the other day where after hearing him he had directed the police authorities to set him free. The Chief Minister’s magnanimous gesture is in sync with the holy month of Ramzan which teaches us to be compassionate, righteous and forgiving. Ahad Jan on the occasion praised the government and shouted slogans in favour of government and police. He was in high spirits and retentive of his impudent action”.

However, informed sources in North Kashmir added that over two hundred people gathered around Jan’s Tata Sumo when he was being examined by doctors at Sub District Hospital of Hajjan. On sighting him emerge from the hospital, they shouted slogans in his favour and Azadi while hailing him as a “great hero” of the Kashmir nation.

Jan was mounted on the top of Tata Sumo and carried all the way to his home in Ajas village of Bandipore. Reports said that the crowd swelled to around 2,000. He was treated to a hero’s welcome by enthusiastic youngsters who shouted pro-Azadi, pro-Islam and anti-India slogans. They also chanted” “teri jaan, meri jaan, Ahad Jan, Ahad Jan’.

Sources said that Jan was made to address the gathering. In contrast to his conversation with Omar Abdullah in Srinagar on Tuesday, Jan told the gathering that he had thrown his shoe on the Indian Parliament which had remained a mute spectator to “bloodshed and civilian killings by armed forces” in Kashmir. He said that he was moved by the “sighs and sobs of Kashmiri mothers” whose young sons had been killed by forces in the last two months and that was the impulse that drove him to throw a shoe at the I-Day event in Srinagar.

He praised separatist leaders, namely Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Asiya Andrabi and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and claimed that he was supportive of their cause of “Kashmir’s freedom from India”. He expressed his gratitude to these leaders and claimed that they had done a lot to get him released. He also claimed that he had already resigned his job in Police and would, now on, active participate in the separatist movement.

In a significant development, Jan claimed that a senior officer of the rank of DIG had asked him to name hardliner Hurriyat Chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani or PDP patriarch, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, as instigators behind the shoe-throwing act but he declined to take the offer. He claimed that during his interrogation, he was promised elevation to the rank of Dy SP if he agreed to act according to the government’s directions. He said that he even turned down Chief Minister’s offer of sending him back to his family in a state helicopter and preferred to travel in a Tata Sumo like any ordinary Kashmiri.

END