By IANS,
Srinagar : Separatist leader Yasin Malik was arrested by police Sunday while he was going towards Shopian town in south Kashmir, where two women were found raped and murdered May 30.
Malik, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was earlier Sunday released from house arrest in summer capital Srinagar, immediately after which he attempted to go to Shopian along with his supporters.
“Malik was taken into preventive custody at Awantipora in Pulwama district while he was going to Shopian town,” a senior police officer said here.
Nearly two dozen supporters were accompanying Malik when police intercepted his convoy at Awantipora town, 30 km from here, in south Kashmir Pulwama district.
Shopian town has been on the boil and observing a shutdown since May 30 when bodies of two local women, Nilofer Jan, 22, and Asiya Jan, 17, were recovered. The two had been raped and then murdered according to the interim report of the judicial probe conducted by a retired judge of the state high court.
Based on this report, five officials – including the district police chief, his deputy, two junior police officers and a scientist of the local forensic laboratory – were suspended from service by the government.
However, violent protests have followed the public outrage over the incident.
An agitation committee formed by the people in Shopian town has vowed that protests and shutdown in the town would continue until the culprits are identified and brought to book.
Last week, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat group had visited the families of the victims and expressed solidarity with the people in Shopian.
State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has asserted that his government would not rest until the guilty are identified and given exemplary punishment.