The authorities in Kashmir on Monday geared up to deal with the shutdown called by the separatists to mark the death anniversaries of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat on February 9 and 11.
The police detained JKLF chief Yasin Malik and other senior leaders. They were presented before a magistrate, who remanded them in judicial custody for seven days. The JLKF planned to take out a protest march on the two days.
Sources said banners and posters depicting Bhat, who was hanged in 1984, and Guru, executed in 2013, have been printed in large numbers by the separatist groups.
“The last letter of Guru, written before he went to the gallows, has become a source of inspiration. His hanging amounted to a murder of justice and proved that India’s democratic claims were a fraud,” said Ayaz Akbar, spokesman of Syed Ali Geelani, leader of a Hurriyat faction.
Both Mr. Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who heads another faction of the Hurriyat, have issued calls for a shutdown and demanded the return of the mortal remains of Guru and Bhat from Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Sources said security would be intensified in sensitive areas.
