Yasin Malik begins fast against detention of youths

SRINAGAR - Yasin Malik, who heads the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), began a day-long fast in Srinagar Saturday morning to protest the arrest of youths by police. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, however, has denied that minors were being detained.

As Malik began his fast in the uptown Maisuma locality of the summer capital city, he was joined by other separatist leaders, including Shabir Shah, Professor Abdul Bhat and relatives of those arrested by police recently.

A tent has been erected in the Maisuma locality near the JKLF headquarters where Malik is sitting on fast to protest what a spokesman of the front described as “indiscriminate arrests by police of youths, including students, and to express solidarity with the detainees languishing in various jails in and outside the state”.

Supporters of the JKLF, among them women, were seen shouting pro-independence slogans at the venue.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Saturday tweeted that “no minors” were being “detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA)”.

The PSA enables the state to book anyone suspected of causing trouble and detain the person for a year without charge sheeting him in the court of law. The law is invoked to book terrorists, their sympathisers, hardcore criminals and habitual troublemakers.