Kashmir paralysed on JKLF founder’s death anniversary

SRINAGAR - A complete shutdown and strict curfew-like restrictions here Thursday paralysed life across Kashmir, where the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) had called a strike on the death anniversary of its founder.

JKLF chairman Yasin Malik, along with other senior leaders of his group, were detained by police and lodged in a police station here.

The organisation’s founder Maqbool Bhat was hanged this day in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 1984.

Shops and offices were shut across the state’s summer capital and public transport was off the roads. Minimal private transport was visible on the streets in the civil lines area.

Police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel fanned out in the old city areas of Srinagar and blocked all the roads with barricades and coils of razor fitted wire to curtail pedestrian and vehicular movement.

The streets were deserted and state government offices and banks across the city were closed.

JKLF supporters made an attempt to take out a procession in the Maisuma locality of the city, but were stopped by police.

A report from Trehgam, the native village of the JKLF founder in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, said JKLF supporters took out a procession shouting pro-independence slogans.

Life in other major towns of the Kashmir valley was crippled in view of the general strike. Shops and businesses were shut and traffic was off the roads.

The authorities have made tight security arrangements in the entire valley to maintain law and order in view of the recent week-long violent protests against the killing of two teenagers in Srinagar.