The authorities on Wednesday imposed curfew-like restrictions in parts of Capital Srinagar to thwart pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir liberation Front’s (JKlF) plans to offer funeral prayers in absentia for its co-founder Amanullah Khan who died in Pakistan on Tuesday.
The police detained JKlF leaders Yasin Malik and Javed Mir in Police Stations while senior Hurriyat Conference leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest.
The 85-year-old Khan was one of the staunch advocates of unification of Jammu & Kashmir as it existed in 1947 and creation of an independent State in the neighbourhood of India and Pakistan.
He co-founded the JKlF with Maqbool Bhat who was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 11, 1984.
He was the staunch supporter of armed insurgency against the Indian rule in Kashmir as his group introduced the armed secessionism in 1988 that changed the characteristics of the Kashmir conflict. Khan was deported from london in 1984 shortly after Indian diplomat Ravendra Mahatre was killed by JKlF activists. Since then he was living in Pakistan.
The JKlF had announced to offer funeral prayers at lal Chowk on Tuesday afternoon. However, police and paramilitary forces cordoned off the area and adjacent Maisuma locality and blocked entry of people and vehicles into the area. JKlF chief Yasin Malik, who also lives in Maisuma, was taken into custody and lodged in a local Police Station. Another JKlF leader Javed Mir attempted to reach lal Chowk but was held at Abiguzar area.
The Opposition National Conference leaders and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah offered condolences on the demise of Amanullah Khan.
Khan’s daughter Asma is married to Social Welfare Minister Sajjad Gani lone, whose father Abdul Gani lone was a separatist leader and his legacy People’s Conference was divided between his two sons.
Sajjad did not attend his father-in-law’s last rites while his wife, who teaches in a Delhi college, had flown to Pakistan last week.
The curfew-like restrictions at lal Chowk area disrupted the traffic flow in the entire city. The commuters complained that hundreds of vehicles were stranded on roads for hours as unannounced restrictions in the city centre resulted into traffic mess.
Khan’s funeral prayers were held in liaqat Bagh of Rawalpindi on Wednesday morning and the body was taken to Gilgit for burial according to his last wish.