Indo-Asian News Service, Srinagar, April 17: Hardline separatist leader Masarat Alam was shifted again on Friday from Srinagar to Badgam district in Jammu and Kashmir where a police complaint has been lodged against him over hoisting Pakistani flags on April 15.
Alam was placed under house arrest on Thursday night at his Zaindar Mohalla residence in old Srinagar city to prevent him from participating in a separatist rally in Kashmir’s Tral town on Friday.
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani was also placed under house arrest in his upscale Hyderpora residence on Thursday.
Alam was shifted on Friday from his residence to Shaheedgunj police station from where he has been shifted to Humhama police station in Badgam.
Police lodged a first information report (FIR) against Alam on April 15 when he led a separatist rally for Geelani, who reached Srinagar that day after spending over three months in Delhi for treatment.
Youths displayed Pakistani flags and shouted pro-Azadi and pro-Pakistan slogans during the rally.
On March 7, the Jammu and Kashmir government released Alam from preventive detention after more than four years.
He was arrested during the 2010 unrest in the Kashmir Valley. He was accused of inciting youth during the unrest in which at least 112 people were killed in clashes between mobs and security forces.
Later in the day clashes erupted between stone pelting protesters and the security forces in the old city area of Srinagar after the Friday prayers.
Immediately after the Friday prayers in Jamia Masjid at Nowhatta in the old city area, stone pelting youths engaged the security forces in pitched battles.
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who delivered the Friday sermon at the Jamia Masjid on Friday, criticised the state government for keeping separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Masarat Alam under house arrest.
Mirwaiz Umer demanded their immediate release and maintained that it was not the separatists but the state that was responsible for breaking the law in Kashmir.
“They keep hundreds of our youths detained without any reason and then accuse us of violating the law. It is the state government that has been breaking the law and not the separatist leadership,” Mirwaiz told the media on Friday.
He, however, asked the Friday congregation to carry out a peaceful protest after the prayers were over.
The protests turned violent as the youths resorted to heavy stone pelting at the security forces which used batons and tear smoke shells to bring the situation under control.