(L to R) Kashmiri separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani; Shabir Shah
Credit: PTI Images
Srinagar: Ruwa Shah, granddaughter of late Syed Ali Geelani -- one of Jammu and Kashmir’s tallest separatist leaders -- has dissociated herself from the separatist ideology and pledged loyalty to the sovereignty of Union of India, along with daughter of another jailed separatist leader.
Ruwa, along with Sama Shabir -- daughter of jailed separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah -- in identical public notices published in local newspapers distanced themselves from separatist politics.
"I am a loyal citizen of India not affiliated with any organisation or association which has an agenda against the Union of India and I owe allegiance to the Constitution of my country (India)," read the notice published by Ruwa, whose father Altaf Shah died in a jail last year, in a local daily earlier this week.
In a similar notice published in a local newspaper on Thursday, 23-year-old Sama, a former CBSE topper in Kashmir, said: "I am a loyal citizen of India and I am not affiliated with any person or organisation which is against the sovereignty of the Union of India."
"I am not associated with the DFP (her father’s party) or its ideology in any way," Sama, who has studied law from the UK, said, cautioning that legal action would be pursued against anyone linking her to the separatist group.
For almost three decades, words of Geelani and Shah carried weight and actions consequences. Yet, amidst the fervor of their struggle, their own family now harbors doubts.
Ruwa Shah, who once was a vocal critic of the Indian state's policies in Kashmir on social media and international media platforms, has now dissociated herself from the separatist ideology.
Ruwa’s brother Anees-ul-Islam, who had allegedly been appointed through backdoor as research officer at the government-controlled Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre in Srinagar in 2016, was terminated from the service by the government in October 2021 in the "interest of the security of the State".
Geelani died in Srinagar on September 2, 2021 and his son-in-law and Ruwa’s father Altaf Shah, who was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail in connection with a terror funding case, died in 2022.
Shabir Ahmad Shah, who was once called as 'Nelson Mandela of Kashmir’, was arrested in 2017 by the Enforcement Directorate over alleged money laundering activities linked to terror financing.
He was later charge sheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for alleged terror financing and is presently lodged in Tihar Jail.