The occupation authorities in occupied Kashmir booked the Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik and Hurriyet leader, Ghulam Nabi Sumji under draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) on Saturday. According to Kashmir Media Service, Yasin Malik was shifted to Jammu Central Jail and Ghulam Nabi Sumji to Kathua Jail.
Indian police personnel had arrested Mohammad Yasin Malik and a member of Jammu and Kashmir Co-ordination Committee, Maulana Shoukat Ahmad Shah from their houses in Srinagar on October 23 and lodged them at Sumbal police station.
Malik had launched the poll boycott campaign from Hajan town in Bandipore and asked people to stay away from the farcical elections, scheduled to be held in occupied Kashmir from November 17 to December 24. That was the first election boycott campaign by a pro-liberation leader after the announcement of the poll schedule by Indian authorities.
Speaking to media men in Srinagar before he was shifted to Jammu Jail, Yasin Malik said, "Jail is like second home to me. We've been carrying on a democratic poll boycott campaign in Kashmir Valley and the Election Commission of India has also said that casting vote in elections was as much a democratic right of the people as the right not to. I appeal to people of occupied Kashmir that they should continue peaceful poll boycott.
"The peaceful election boycott by the masses will be the biggest setback to Indian democracy. It will be a victory for us," Yasin Malik pointed out. The JKLF Chairman asserted that the sacrifices rendered by Kashmiris would be safeguarded at all costs.