Authorities in held Kashmir on Saturday prevented a march against Indian rule by deploying police and paramilitary troops in the region wracked by weeks of deadly protests. Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest after Geelani called upon residents of Muslim-majority Kashmir to march to a football ground in the state summer capital Srinagar for a rally.
The scenic region has been under rolling curfews to contain deadly protests that began with the killing on June 11 of a teenage student in occupied Srinagar by a police teargas shell. Since then a total of 64 protesters and bystanders have been killed, mostly by security forces who have opened fire on stone-pelting protesters.
Barbed wire barriers and iron gates were erected Saturday to seal off the area around the grounds, which lie close to a small UN office monitoring cease-fire violations along the Line of Control. Syed Ali Geelani had urged the residents to gather at the football ground for a rally against Indian rule.
Authorities responded by enforcing a strict curfew in most of occupied Srinagar and imposed strict security restrictions in other towns. "The step has been taken to prevent any law and order problems," police official Pervez Ahmed told AFP. Police Saturday detained leading female leader Aasiya Andrabi.
"She has been arrested in occupied Srinagar," a police officer said, asking not to be named. Andrabi is part of Geelani's alliance and has spearheaded some of the women's protests in the region. Andrabi, who heads Dukhtaran-e-Milat or Daughters of Faith, has been in and out of jail for campaigning against Indian rule in the state and for her morality crusades.