Passport Issued to Hurriyat’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Congress leader Pramod Tiwari on Wednesday said a passport should not have been issued to Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani at this juncture. The External Affairs Ministry, which issues passports, then had said that “the application could not be processed in its present form”. Soon after the controversy over the issuance of passport to Geelani broke out, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said that the separatist leader should be issued a passport as he wanted to meet his ailing daughter.

“A passport has been dispatched to Mr. Geelani’s address from our Regional Passport office”, Regional Passport Officer of Kashmir, Firdous Iqbal Tak, told The Hindu on Tuesday.

Geelani’s application for a passport was rejected in May on grounds of incomplete information.

Akbar said so far neither Geelani’s wife nor his son has received the passport.

“He had completed all the required formalities as per the laid down procedure following which we have issued a short validity passport to him”. The issue of granting Geelani passport had sparked a political debate with ruling BJP opposing it saying that he should declare his nationality as Indian and apologise for his “anti-national” activities. However, he had insisted that he did it out of “compulsion”.

Former chief minister Omar Abdullah had said it was not an issue as Geelani had been given passport in the past too. “It is a compulsion”.