Allow Cookies!
By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies
Separatist leader and Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) chairman Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai was taken into custody on Sunday by police from his residence, and is probably going to be booked under the J&K Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978, officials said.
The officials said a police party detained Sehrai from his residence at Baghat Barzulla in Srinagar early this morning and took him to the police headquarters .
J&K Police captain Dilbagh Singh said that the detainee and a few of members of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) are detained and are likely to be booked under the stringent PSA which enables authorities to detain a person for one year without trial.
Sehrai, a former JeI leader and a hardliner, is that the chairman of TeH which was previously headed by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
TeH may be a constituent of Hurriyat Conference which was headed by Geelani till he resigned from the amalgam last month.
He is believed to be eyeing heading the Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of 26 separatist parties.
This faction of the Hurriyat is different from the one led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who has favoured dialogue as a way to finish the violence in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sehrai’s son, Junaid Sehrai, a divisional commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed in an encounter in Nawakadal area of Srinagar in May 2020.
The officials said several other JeI cadres are being picked up before the primary anniversary of the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Centre on August 5 last year abrogated Article 370 of the constitution which gave Jammu and Kashmir special status and divided the erstwhile state into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
A similar crackdown on separatist and JeI leaders was launched by the police before the Centre’s move last year. Most of the highest separatist leaders are either under confinement or in custody.
86540
103860
630
114
59824