Afzal Guru had sought Geelani’s help for transfer to Srinagar jail

NEW DELHI: Eighteen months before his execution in the 2001 Parliament attack case, Afzal Guru wrote a letter to Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani seeking help to get him transferred from Delhi’s Tihar to the Srinagar central jail.

The letter was recovered by the NIA sleuths when they raided the residence of Geelani's son-inlaw Altaf Ahmad Shah ‘Funtoosh’ on June 3 in connection with a probe linked to terrorist funding. Funtoosh was arrested on Monday in the same case.

“I request you to ask Omar Abdullah (then chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir) to reply to the Supreme Court notice about my jail transfer instead of talking about passing the resolution in the assembly which I do not need at all,” wrote Guru. A copy of the letter was also recovered from Ayaz Akbar Khanday when his residence was raided on June 4.

“The letter seems to be genuine. We will ask both Funtoosh and Khanday to shed more light on it,” said an NIA official who wished to remain anonymous given the sensitive nature of probe. The letter is dated September 6, 2011. “There is a court ruling that a prisoner should be kept in a jail as near as possible to the place of residence of his family. Guru had first approached authorities and later the Supreme Court in this regard," says SAR Geelani, who was an accused in the Parliament attack case along with Guru but was acquitted.