Three prominent separatist leaders of Kashmir Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik have decided to proceed to New Delhi on Saturday to hold a sit-in and court arrest at the headquarters of National Investigation Agency (NIA) to exhibit resentment against its exhaustive crackdown against separatist leaders and workers, their relatives, select businessmen and alleged stone-throwers. The State authorities are unlikely to hold the trio back like they were stopped on Thursday when they attempted to fly to New Delhi. While Geelani and Mirwaiz were held at their respective residences, Malik was detained and lodged at central jail. However, the curbs were lifted on them on Friday afternoon.
In a statement, the trio said Joint Resistance leadership (JRl) will leave for New Delhi Saturday to court arrest before NIA headquarters and to stage protest sit-in against NIA raids.
“Mirwaiz and Malik will reach Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani’s residence at Hyderpora before proceeding towards New Delhi at 1 pm. Their fight is scheduled at 3 pm Saturday from Srinagar Airport,” the trio said in a statement said. Top police sources said that the separatist leaders would be allowed to travel to New Delhi. Interestingly, the separatist leaders would leave Srinagar when Home Minister Rajnath Singh would have landed in the town.
If their travel materializes, it would be first time in decades, when the three top separatist leaders would be travels to Delhi together.
Sources said Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik held a meeting later in the evening and decided to fly to New Delhi on Saturday. The authorities foiled their similar attempt on Thursday and detained them only to be released later in the evening. The separatists have described the NIA crackdown as vindictive to muzzle the “genuine political voices” in Kashmir.
The Srinagar based journalists would stage a protest demonstration in the capital city against the arrest of freelance photographer Kamran Yusuf, a resident of Pulwama by the NIA sleuths. In a statement the journalists said that Yusuf is known to have been working professionally and asked the NIA to come clean on the charges being slapped on Kamran Yusuf.