By IRNA,
Srinagar, India : Srinagar is virtually under siege and as a last ditch effort to prevent mass defiance of curfew police arrested top Hurriyat leaders including Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani during overnight raids conducted across the city.
Both leaders who had vowed to lead marches to Lal Chowk have been taken to undisclosed location, family sources said.
Shabbir Shah and Yasin Malik, two other prominent leaders, however evaded the arrest and vowed to reach Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the city, despite stringent curfew restrictions.
With massive deployment of police, CRPF and army across Kashmir and imposition of curfew government was provoking peaceful protestors to resort to violence, Shabbir Shah said.
Shah told reporters over phone from an undisclosed place that he left his Rawalpora residence at 2315 hrs last night.
He said the Indian forces ransacked his entire house and harassed his family members, including his mother, wife and daughter.
Mr Shah said he would not be cowed down by such repressive measures of the administration.
Mr Shah said a number of senior Hurriyat leaders were arrested by the authorities to prevent them from participating in the peaceful Lal Chowk sit-in.
He said we have decided to hold a peaceful sit-in at Lal Chowk and there was absolutely no justification for clamping curfew. “We were not being allowed to organise a peaceful sit-in while in Jammu Hindu extremists were helped by the police and other government forces to enforce an economic blockade of Kashmir valley and attacks on Muslims.”
A spokesman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said the police also raided the party office and residence of their leader.
However, he added Mr Yasin Malik had also gone underground.
An indefinite curfew was imposed on Sunday morning to prevent people from reaching the city. Lal Chowk has been sealed off with gun toting paramilitary men in strength deployed there. Barbed wire baricades have been erected on all the entry points of the sprawling square to prevent people from assembling there.
Kashmir is under direct central rule this time and New Delhi has been maintaining that Hurriyat lacks any public support.
After initial flexible attitude, government embarrassed by the massive turnout in the rallies, is now desperately trying to control the situation.
At least one person was killed on Sunday and dozens wounded after police and CRPF opened fire on people defying curfew restrictions.
The killing took place in Dalgate area of the city where one man was killed and his son critically injured after CRPF opened fire there, sparking tension in the area.
Dozens others were wounded in Handwara and Beeru towns when people took to streets.
In Handwara thousands of people came out of their houses denouncing what they alleged was desecration of holy Quran by Indian soldiers.
In down town Srinagar CRPF personnel broke into houses, smashing windowpanes after groups of youth came out chanting anti-India slogans.