SRINAGAR: Kashmir’s firebrand separatist leader and chief of all-women Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Sayeda Aasiya Andrabi, was on Tuesday arrested after a 12-week manhunt.
The ailing Andrabi was arrested from Srinagar’s Kralkhud area and quickly removed to an unknown destination, police and her party sources said.
The 54-year-old separatist leader who remains covered by head-to-toe black veil when in public is a staunch supporter of Jammu and Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan and has been highly critical of the role of the government and the security forces in the ongoing unrest in the Valley.
Her husband Ashiq Hussain Faktoo alias Muhammad Qasim, a founder member of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin and present head of Muslim Deeni Mahaz outfit is in jail since 1992. The Dukhtar-e-Millat general secretary Nahida Nasreen confirming Ms. Andrabi’s arrest said, “It will not break her resolve to fight for the freedom of Kashmir from Indian occupation”.
