Complaint filed in court against Geelani, Arundhati

NEW DELHI: A complaint was filed in a Delhi court seeking prosecution of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and writer Arundhati Roy on the charge of sedition for their alleged anti-India statements.

Metropolitan Magistrate Navita Kumari Bagha is likely to hear on November three the complaint filed by Aditya Raj Kaul under various provisions of the IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, dealing with sedition, promoting enmity between classes, hurring religious sentiments and indulging in unlawful activities.

Besides Geelani and Roy, the complaint also seeks to prosecute five others, including Delhi University professor S A R Geelani, who was acquitted in Parliament attack case and Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a professor of Jammu and Kashmir University.

The complaint, filed by advocate Vikas Padora under section 156 (3) of CrPC, seeks either registration of an FIR or a direction to the police to file a report after probing their alleged anti-India statements at a seminar here.

The accused, while taking part at a convention on 'Azadi--The Only Way', Hurriyat leader Geelani had shared the dais with Roy and pro-Maoist leader Vara Vara Rao among others.

Geelani was, however, heckled by the audience. Roy had said Kashmir was never an integral part of India. It was a historical fact. Even the Indian government had accepted this.

It was alleged that as the government had miserably failed to initiate any action against the "culprits of the Anti-India seminar, a private complaint against them has been filed."