Masrat told Police Geelani gave Rs 40 lakh for stir: DGP

Masrat told Police Geelani gave Rs 40 lakh for stir: DGP
Posted by K4Kashmir on December 16, 2010 in Kashmir | 0 Comment Edit
Masrat told Police Geelani gave Rs 40 lakh for stir: DGP
Hurriyat (G) alleges coercion, says Police resorting to ‘petty tactic’

Srinagar, Dec 14: Director General of Police Kuldip Khoda has said that Masrat Alam, who spearheaded “JK Quit Compaign” from June to September has told police that he having received Rs 40 lakh from Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani through different channels to fuel the protests and incite stone pelters.

In an interview to a Jammu based newspaper, Khoda said during sustained interrogation by police after his arrest from outskirts of Srinagar more than one and a half month back, Masrat admitted that he got Rs 40 lakh from Geelani during three months of hiding to generate protests and stone pelting incidents across the Kashmir valley.
“Police was trying to ascertain channels used by Geelani to make payments to Masrat in hiding. The sources, who were making payments to the Hurriyat chairman, are also being traced,” he said.
DGP said Masrat has also revealed some of the channels implied by Pakistan. “Police was on the job to nail the persons, who had acted as conduits between Geelani and Alam when the latter was issuing protest calendars and spreading trouble in the Valley from hiding using the funds given by Geelani,” he said.
He said Pakistan has been using different channels to fund the separatists including Geelani to sustain protests, which were part of their new strategy. “Some of them were paid cash during their trips to different States while some others got money through net banking. Srinagar-Muzaffarabad cross-LoC trade route has also been used for funding separatists,” he said.
Stating that payment of funds to separatists and others by Pakistan was not a simple mechanism, DGP said, “Had it been so simple, we would have choked it. Several channels are being used by Pakistan to fund separatists and militants. Police was always on the task to unravel the sources and block them”.
He said it was not that everybody engaged in protests was paid. “The organizers had been paid and they incited the people to hold protests and subject security forces and police to stone pelting. The militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) had also been working behind the scenes to fuel the protests,” the police chief disclosed.
He said in view of a sharp decline in militancy last year when it had gone an all time low, Pakistan changed its strategy this year to keep the Kashmir valley disturbed.
“Under the new strategy, Pakistan encouraged separatists and other agents to incite people for mob violence. The separatists to hold street protests and mob violence exploited very small issues of public grievances, which could have been easily addressed. The simple protests were converted into ‘pro-azadi’ processions. Now when the latest strategy of Pakistan has also failed to work, their strategists would try to introduce fresh kind of trouble in the Valley next year but we are fully prepared to deal with them,” added Khoda.
Hurriyat (G) spokesman Ayaz Akbar while responding to DGP’s allegations said Bhat was interrogated at Air Cargo SOG Camp for at least two months where he had to face “third degree” torture. “It was all coercion and whatever has been reported has no credibility,” he said.
Akbar said police is using the ‘petty tactic’ to defame the Hurriyat (G). “Such things are deliberately told to media persons to defame our party as well as the pious freedom movement of Kashmir,” he said.
He said the government and police were “shaken” by the massive support received by Hurriyat (G ) during this year’s agitation. “The government and police are frustrated and using every petty tactic to defame the peaceful movement of people by linking it to militants and now this money involvement. Such baseless and false allegations will not deter our resolve to carry forward the struggle,” Akbar added.