At 10:30 pm last night, Kashmir’s staunchest and unarguably most popular pro-freedom leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, breathed his last at his residence in Srinagar. He was 92. He had been under house arrest for almost a decade. He was asthmatic, had just one functional kidney, and had been struggling with dementia for the past few years. Even so, in order to preclude any chance of physical movement, a rusting police vehicle, mounted with cameras, was always stationed outside his residence. As the news of his death spread, police and paramilitary forces sealed off the roads to his residence, announced restrictions across Kashmir, and also snapped internet and mobile phone networks. The family of the deceased also allege that his body was snatched from them by the police and his last rites were performed before the break of dawn amid the heavy presence of security forces.