On Tuesday, jailed terrorist Altaf Ahmad Shah, son-in-law of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani breathed his last at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. Shah was diagnosed with renal cancer that spread to other parts of his body leading to his death on October 11.
The incident was confirmed by Shah’s daughter named Ruwa who said that her father had died of cancer in Delhi’s AIIMS hospital. “Abu breathed his last at AIIMS, New Delhi. As a prisoner,” she tweeted. According to the reports, Shah was the son-in-law of separatist leader Geelani who was the former Hurriyat chief. Shah was arrested in the year 2017 and was in Tihar jail since then in a terror funding case.
Shah, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, and Peer Saifullah were produced before Delhi’s Patiala Court in the year 2017 in the terror funding case which also involved terrorist Hafiz Saeed. The NIA also questioned Geelani’s sons in the matter and eventually filed a case alleging separatists of collaborating with terrorist organizations.
The NIA had launched searches at many locations around the union territory (a state at the time) other than Haryana and the national capital, seizing electronic gadgets and valuables worth crores of rupees. The complaint was filed for illegally soliciting, receiving, and collecting funds for separatist and terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir. It also included spreading havoc in the Valley by throwing stones at security officers, torching schools, destroying public property, and declaring war against India.
According to Shah’s daughter Ruwa, Shah, a resident of Soura in Srinagar was diagnosed with renal cancer and was not keeping well for the past six months. He was taken to Deendayal hospital Janakpuri, then to Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, and was later shifted to AIIMS where he breathed his last.