I have been disappointed by the lack of depth in the coverage of the Amarnath tragedy.  The same superficial “filmi” rendering is repeated by channel after channel.  A Muslim hero “risks his life” to save Yatris (when Salim Shaikh clearly said that he drove the bus away from the hail of bullets to save his own life and that of the others; which is itself, without the filmi spin, reason for a national salute to him).  “All of Kashmir” is united “against” the attack, when in fact no one gave a single call for Kashmir bandh to protest the attack, and no street protests were recorded.  I could go on.

Due to this opiate filmi secular analysis (“in the end, secularism wins”), some very pertinent points are not brought out at all.  First of all, the case of Mr. Geelani.  Syed Ali Shah Geelani.  In the pit of snakes that is the Hurriyat, the most venomous snake is Geelani.  He is the most open pro-Pakistan separatist in the Hurriyat.  He is from the Jamaat-e-Islaami, which is the single force responsible for the Islamization of the valley for the past 50 years or so.  Here is my simple “investigation” of him in the Amarnath case.

Point 1:

Geelani is the most important Hurriyat leader in the valley. His respect and influence is hard for us to imagine, but is attested to by various Kashmiri separatist leaders.

Point 2:

In 2015, Geelani, while addressing a huge rally in Tral (the town which is the epicenter of terror, and gave rise to Burhan Wani among others), put the Amarnath yatra squarely in his cross-hairs.  He said that the Yatra was causing lot of misery to Kashmiris, and should be reduced to 15 days (from 60 days).

Of course, he gave a specious reason: that the yatra was causing the glacier to melt and this causes floods in Kashmir (!).  But it was clear he was unhappy with the continuation of the Yatra.  The crowd listened intently, waving Pakistani flags – please see the entire video for yourself:

Point 3:

In a recent India Today sting, which is being investigated by the NIA, it was revealed that Geelani receives massive funding from Pakistan to instigate violence and unrest in the valley.  Furthermore, some funding comes directly from the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and Geelani himself is in touch with Hafiz Saeed.

Point 4:

Bharat’s security intelligence believes that the attack was carried out by Lashkar terrorist Abu Ismail, supported by local Hizbul terrorists.

If you put these points together, it seems hard to believe that Geelani was not in the know about planning for an attack on Amarnath by his chum Hafiz Saeed. Indeed, I would wager that Saeed would not dare make such a big move in Geelani’s Kashmir valley without telling Geelani about it in advance and obtaining his blessings. Kashmir valley is Geelani’s turf, and Hafiz Saeed operates there with his cooperation.

Also, since Geelani is also operated partly by remote control by Pakistan and ISI, one would suspect that the demand for Amarnath yatra curtailing made in 2015 could be at their behest.

This connection needs to be investigated. Geelani needs to be pulled up for harsh interrogation for what he knew about the attack. We need to, as Hindus and Bharatiyas, stop being satisfied with filmi “secularism wins” endings.  Such endings are proffered only when Hindus are killed, giving them a false sense of security that “all is well.” All is not well—let us not shift the focus from the Jihadi  attacks till full justice is done.

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