Srinagar: All Party Hurriyat Conference on Tuesday appointed imprisoned leader Masarat Alam Bhat as the group’s new chairman following the death of its former leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
According to the statement issued by the Hurriyat Conference, Shabir Shah and Ghulam Ahmad Gulzar have been appointed as vice-chairmen, and Moulvi Bashir Ahmar Irfani will take the responsibilities of general secretary.
Masarat Alam, born in 1971, is the chairman of the separatist organisation Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League (JKML) and has so far spent almost 17 years of his life in jail for 27 different cases. He took the path of separatism in 1999, after which he was imprisoned several times. He was arrested in 2010 for leading protests, his speech and releasing protest calendars in the Valley. However, five years later, in 2015, he was released from prison for a few days.
He was again arrested on April 17, 2015, on charges of chanting anti-India slogans and waving the Pakistani flag in Srinagar. Public Safety Act (PSA) was slapped on him. The next day, the late Geelani called for a strike in the valley. On September 1, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court ordered his release, but police re-arrested him. He was taken to Jammu’s Kathua jail, however, later he was shifted to New Delhi’s Tihar Prison Jail number 3.
