Srinagar, Feb 11: Complete shutdown was observed Friday across the Valley on the 27th anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front founder Muhammad Maqbool Bhat’s hanging in Tihar Jail. At least a dozen activists of pro-freedom groups were detained and five persons wounded in clashes during protest rallies held here for demanding return of the mortal remains of the pro-freedom ideologue.
Muhammad Maqbool Bhat was hanged and buried in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 1984.
All the shops, business establishments and many government offices remained closed while traffic was off the roads in the city on the call of pro-freedom groups.
Large contingent of police and paramilitary CRPF men were deployed in strength in volatile downtown and Maisuma area of the city to prevent pro-freedom protests.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front led by its vice-chairman Bashir Ahmed Bhat took out a protest rally from Madeena Chowk Maisuma after Friday prayers.
Raising pro-freedom slogans, the party activists were demanding return of the mortal remains of Bhat. As they tried to march towards Lal Chowk, the police detained seven leaders of the party including Bashir Ahmed Bhat, Showkat Bakshi, Shiekh Abdur Rashid and Yasin Bhat.
The arrests sparked violent clashes in the area in which five persons were wounded. Eyewitnesses told Greater Kashmir that scores of activists of JKLF took to streets after arrests and clashed with cops. The policemen fired teargas canisters and baton-charged the protesters. The locals alleged that cops also broke the windowpanes of several houses in the area.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (R) chairman Farooq Ahmed Dar and vice- chairman Javaid Ahmed Mir took out a protest rally from Abi-Guzar here this morning.
A police contingent intercepted them and detained several of them including Mir.
“Six activists were injured in lathi-charge of the police,” a spokesman of the party said.
Activists of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party led by vice-chairman Afaq Khan also staged protests for return of the mortal remains of Bhat.
A spokesman of the DLP said policemen baton-charged the processionists and detained six party activists and also locked their Rajbagh office.
Clashes also erupted between police and protesters in Baramulla town. Scores of youth clashed with police and CRPF men on Cement Bridge and SRTC Yard Bridge. However no one was hurt.
Pro-freedom demonstrations were also staged in the native town of Bhat in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district. After Friday prayers hundreds of people including Bhat’s relatives took to streets in Trehgam, demanding his mortal remains.
A police spokesman said “miscreants” resorted to heavy stone pelting on police and forces deployments at Maisuma in Srinagar and at Cement Bridge Baramulla, soon after the Friday prayers.
“Three policemen suffered injuries in stone pelting,” he said.
He added that police exercised maximum restraint while dealing with the situation.
NISAR THOKAR ADDS FROM ISLAMABAD: JKLF activists held a sit-in protest in front of the UNMOGIP office in Islamabad today and urged the UN to exert pressure on India to handover the mortal remains of the JKLF founder late Maqbool Bhat to his relatives in Kashmir.
Speakers on the occasion highlighted the sacrifices of Maqbool Bhat
who was hanged to death in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on this day in1984. Terming Bhat as the pioneer of the ongoing struggle, they said that his indomitable role and peerless contribution would be remembered for a long time.
Later, the JKLF leaders presented a memorandum to the UN officials seeking the intervention of the highest body to get-back the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat.
The memorandum also highlighted the prevailing political and human rights situation in Kashmir and demanded that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon should send a fact finding mission to JK to probe into the cases of extra-judicial killings, unnamed graves, torture and killings of innocents.
Besides the JKLF stalwarts, the protest demonstration was also attended by the leaders of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (M) and several others including Ghulam Ahmed Bhat, Rafique Ahmed Dar, Saleem Haroon, Peoples League Chairman Sheik Yaqoob, Manzoor-ul-Haq Bhat andNsiar Mirza.
Meanwhile, APHC-M organized a Quran Khawani function at its office in Islamabad to pay homage to the JKLF leader. Besides the amalgam’s convener Mehmood Ahmed Saghar, the prayer function was attended by the APHC leaders and representatives of the Kashmiris community.