'Will live forever with Allah': Slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's poster in Kerala sparks outrage; see pics

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran, with conflicting reports attributing the attack to either a targeted strike (Iran) or an Israeli raid (Hamas). Now a poster of him has allegedly appeared in Kozhikode, Kerala. 

A poster supporting the slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has appeared allegedly in Kozhikode, Kerala, months after his killing in Tehran, Iran. The poster, attributed to the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), the students' wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, pays tribute to Haniyeh. The poster in Malayalam roughly translates to 'Will live forever with Allah'.

Netizens have expressed strong condemnation, calling the incident "from high Literacy state to high militant state soon". Many have questioned the glorification of a leader of an organisation designated as a terrorist group by several countries.

Ismail Haniyeh, a senior leader of Hamas, was fatally targeted at his Tehran residence, according to Iran's IRGC. Hamas, which is currently embroiled in a conflict with Israel in Gaza, attributed Haniyeh's death to an Israeli attack. At the time of his death, Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Haniyeh was the exiled political chief of the militant group and had spent much of his time in recent years in Qatar. During the Israel-Gaza war, he had acted as a negotiator in the ceasefire talks and liased with Hamas’s main ally, Iran.

The 62-year-old was born in a refugee camp near Gaza City. He joined Hamas in the late 1980s and swiftly rose through the ranks to become a close associate of Hamas's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.