By NAK,
Srinagar: With curfew in force on the second consecutive day in Kashmir valley, the state government managed to thwart the Kashmir Coordination Committee’s Lal Chowk Chalo march today.
Sources told News Agency of Kashmir that almost all the separatist leaders were either put under house arrest or they were detained well before the march yesterday. The whole Lal Chowk area was converted into fortress with deployment of police, para-military force and army jawans.
All the roads and lanes linking the Lal Chowk area were sealed by erecting barricades and spreading concertina wires.
At-least 2000 people in Baramulla area defied the curfew restrictions and they took to the streets. They were, however, pushed back to their respective areas by the police and CRPF jawans.
No vehicular traffic was allowed to move towards the valley on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway by the administration since last evening. The administration had announced the suspension of vehicular traffic in advance citing the reason that some repair had to be carried out on the NH.
Yesterday, it is pertinent to mention here that the police have detained several separatist leaders and put some of them under house arrests along with their activists to outwit the KKC’s Lal Chowk Chalo march.
Police had begun a crackdown on the separatist leaders and activists on October 4, 2008.
However, Kashmir Coordination Committee has announced that the march would be totally peaceful, and all sorts of inflammatory slogans would be refrained from but to foil the march administration continued crackdown on the separatist leadership and activists.
Since last month September, several Hurriyat leaders including senior APHC leader, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Masarat Aalam Butt, Muhammad Ashraf Sahrai, Aasiya Andrabi, Mohammad Ayaz Akbar, Hakeem Shauk, Peer Saifullah, Merajuddin Kalwal, Muhammad Saleem Nanhaji, Farooq Ahmad Dar, Ghulam Nabi Gandnah, Abdul Ghani Shah, Bashir Ahmad Andrabi and scores of other activists have been arrested and booked under Public Safety Act and sent them to various jails of the state.
The cops raided the residence of senior Kashmiri Hurriyet leader, Syed Ali Geelani and Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees chief, Maulana Shaukat Ahmad Shah in Srinagar barring their movement.
Huge deployment of police, CRPF and army jawans were made and the indefinite curfew was imposed since yesterday morning.
Meanwhile, the Hurriyat Conference criticised the state authorities’s decision to impose an indefinite curfew to prevent separatists from organising a march to Lal Chowk, saying it was an “undemocratic process” as the government was not listening to the views of the people.
“Imposing curfew is not a democratic process. People’s voice should not only be heard but also acted upon… it will be in the benefit of all the concerned,” former Hurriyat Chairman and senior separatist leader Abdul Gani Bhat News Agency of Kashmir.
He said the separatist leaders were willing to adopt an alternative method for conveying the wishes and aspirations of the people to the Centre if New Delhi did not like the present mode of agitation.