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  India   Curbs on march for JKLF founder

Curbs on march for JKLF founder

| YUSUF JAMEEL
Published : Apr 28, 2016, 4:31 am IST
Updated : Apr 28, 2016, 4:31 am IST

Supporters of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front shout pro-freedom slogans during a march towards Lal Chowk in Srinagar. (Photo: H.U. Naqash)

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Supporters of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front shout pro-freedom slogans during a march towards Lal Chowk in Srinagar. (Photo: H.U. Naqash)

The J&K police and CRPF reinforcements fanned out overnight enforced security restrictions on Srinagar’s central square Lal Chowk and neighbourhood areas to hold back “nimaz-e-jinaza gaibana” or the funeral in absentia for Amanullah Khan, the co-founder of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on Wednesday.

Eighty-two-year-old Khan, who had introduced the guns to the Kashmiri youth in 1989, died at a hospital in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi on Tuesday.

The security forces laid concertina razor wire and placed “bunker” vehicles criss-crossing the roads and side streets, blocking all entry and exit points to the historic Lal Chowk. Neighbouring Maisuma, the hotbed of separatist campaign and where Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik lives, and other surrounding areas too were sealed by the security forces.

Mr Malik was earlier picked up from his residence and removed to nearby Kothi Bagh police station. Officials said he and some other JKLF activists were also taken into “preventive custody” but would be released either Wednesday night itself or early Thursday morning.

Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of separatist Hurriyat conference alliance, Mr Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and some other separatist activists were also placed under house arrest or detained in police stations to prevent them from relocating to Lal Chowk.

Prior to his detention, Mr Malik telephoned journalists to condemn imposition of curfew-like restrictions in Lal Chowk, Court Road, Aabi Guzar, Koker Bazaar, Amira Kadal, Maisuma and Gaw Kadal areas of uptown Srinagar.

He termed the move as “high-handedness” of security forces and the authorities.

Mr Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that imposing official ban even on a funeral prayer corroborates the charge that “it is martial law in force in Kashmir”.

Another JKLF leader and former militant commander Javed Ahmed Mir was picked up by the police from Aabi Guzar area, a furlong away from Lal Chowk, witnesses said. In the afternoon, JKLF activists joined by those from some other separatist groups emerged of Maisuma in a procession and began marching on Lal Chowk but the police quickly came in their way and took them in custody, witnesses said.

Khan was the father-in-law of regional People’s Conference chairman and J&K’s minister for social welfare Sajad Gani Lone. He is married to Khan’s only daughter Asma Khan but he decided not to attend Khan’s jinaza (funeral prayer), held in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on Wednesday. Lone is an ally of the BJP and local political watchers say his travelling to Islamabad to attend Khan’s funeral could have been seized by the opposition to disparage the saffron party. However, his wife flew to Islamabad from Delhi last week to be on the side of her ailing father during his last days.

Mr. Lone, However, attended ‘funeral in absentia’ of Khan offered at Allama Iqbal Centre in Srinagar’s Rawalpora area in the afternoon. Such prayer meetings were held also in several other parts of the Valley.

The JKLF leader, who had led a violent campaign for independent Kashmir, was born in the Astore area of Gilgit on August 24, 1934, was also the co-founder of the Kashmir Independent Committee in 1963. He was elected secretary-general of the JK Plebiscite Front (PF) in 1965 and co-founded the Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF) with Muhammad Maqbool Bhat who was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 11, 1984.

Khan’s death has been widely mourned on both side of the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and in Pakistan. Former Union minister and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah and his son and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah are among mainstream leaders from Jammu and Kashmir who condoled Khan’s death and sympathised with the bereaved family. Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif condoled his death, saying that the sacrifices of Khan for Kashmiris would be long remembered.

Location: India, Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar