SRINAGAR: Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of Hurriyat Conference alliance, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was on Monday evening released from a sub-jail here and taken to his residence where he was subsequently placed under house arrest.
The 43-year-old separatist leader was on August 27 this year shifted to a makeshift detention centre in the foothills of Zabarwan range here from a City police station. A day before, the police had detained him as he came out of his residence in Srinagar’s Nigeen area to march on City’s Eidgah grounds where the separatists had planned to hold an “azaadi” rally on August 26. Since he remained lodged in a cottage in the high-security Chashmashahi near the Raj Bhavan turned into a sub-jail.
A spokesman of the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat Conference said that soon after he reached his Nigeen residence here, a large contingent of the J&K police arrived there to announce that he has been placed under house arrest.
The Mirwaiz is among three key separatist leaders who are part of an alliance which has been issuing protest calendars which are largely obeyed by the people of the Valley following the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani on July 8.
Nearly 100 people have died and thousands wounded during this period. Also, about 9,000 people, mainly youth, have been arrested by the police in a tough campaign launched by it to contain the unrest.
The Mirwaiz has been released on a day when media reports emanating from Delhi said that in an effort to initiate ‘Track II diplomacy’ towards seeking a solution to the Kashmir crisis, a 6-member team set up by Central government is visiting Srinagar during this week.
The team led by former Union Minister for External Affairs, Yashwat Sinha, has also been asked to assess the ground situation in the Valley, the reports said. The other members of the team are MP Jairam Ramesh, Former Chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities and Chief Information Commissioner of India Wajahat Habibullah, Former Air Vice Marshal, Bharat Bhushan, Journalist (Editor of Catch News) Kapil Kak, and Executive Director, Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation Sushobha Barve , the reports added.
Meanwhile, suspected militants targeted the ancestral house of senior ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) leader and public works department minister Abdur Rehman Veeri in southern Anantnag on Monday evening without causing any casualties or damage to the property, however.
Officials said that the policemen guarding the house returned fire and that after some time the attackers fled the scene. “There was no one present in the house and there have been no casualties,” police sources said adding that reinforcements from the J&K police reached the spot but the gunmen had already left. “It was actually an attack on the policemen guarding the house and not the minister’s property as such,” a senior police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity added.
Police said that on Monday evening, “some miscreants” in order to impose shutdown call lobbed a petrol bomb on a moving tipper near Khanpora on the outskirts of Baramulla town, injuring its driver Irshad Ahmed. The police has registered an FIR under relevant sections of law for attempt to murder.
