Shoe flung at Geelani in Delhi over secession talk

As the government's interlocutor plan to visit Kashmir on Saturday, hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Thursday termed the step as a "fraud" and said they should be boycotted in the Valley.

"Dialogue is not possible till my five-point suggestions are adhered to," Geelani said in New Delhi while addressing a convention on 'Azaadi -- The Only Way', as he shared dais with a number of various other separatists, Naxal sympathisers and pro-Khalistan people.

"Today it is said that the interlocutors will come and meet a host of people in the state for one year to understand what people want. This is a fraud. It is an attempt to delay everything hoping that people will forget," he said.

He insisted that Kashmir is not an internal issue but an international one and said the interlocutors should be boycotted. Geelani, who has been spewing venom on India, claimed that he was not against the people of India.

At the convention, the Hurriyat hawk faced a strong protest from a group of people, one of whom threw a shoe towards him but it missed the target.

Shouting slogans like 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and 'Vande Mataram', the protestors numbering around 70 created a ruckus to voice their unhappiness over Geelani's presence at the talk.

A human chain was immediately thrown around him on the dais by the security personnel and organisers to protect him.

The protestors were taken out by police personnel, and 32 of them were detained and later let off. At the time of the protest, S A R Geelani, a lecturer who was accused in the Parliament attack case but later set free, was at the lectern.