SRINAGAR (AFP): Indian police arrested over two dozen Hurriyat leaders and activists including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik from Srinagar on Wednesday, informed the Kashmir Media Service.
The Hurriyat leaders and activists were arrested when they arrived at the head office of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which Malik heads, to lead a protest march at Lal Chowk against the Indian state’s atrocities.
The detained activists include Hilal Ahmad War, Ghulam Nabi Zaki, Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi, Syed Imtiaz Haider, Omar Aadil Dar, Rameez Raja, Mukhtar Ahmad Sofi, Muhammad Yasin Attai, Muhammad Yasin Butt, Zahoor Ahmad Butt, Muhammad Siddiq Shah, Nisar Hussain Rathar, Muhammad Ashraf Changal, Shabbir Ahmad, Zahoor Ahmad, Bashir Kashmiri, Farooq Ahmad and Merajuddin.
The arrestees were lodged at Kothi Bagh police station in Srinagar. As soon as the leaders after addressing a press conference tried to proceed towards Lal Chowk, a huge contingent of Indian police stopped and arrested them.
During the arrest, Kashmiri activists raised pro-Pakistan, pro-freedom and anti-India slogans on the occasion. The protesters condemned military operation in south Kashmir where people including women and children are being targeted in houses. Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Gilani telephonically addressed the press conference at his residence.
The leaders condemned the raids and arrests by India’s National Investigation Agency, brutalities of Indian forces in South and North Kashmir and the repeated invoking of black law, Public Safety Act, against unlawfully detained leaders.
They said that there was police raj in occupied Kashmir. They criticised “puppet” Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for adhering to extremist RSS ideology in Kashmir.
