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JKLF chairman Yasin Malik arrested, booked under POTO

Malik was addressing media persons at the All Parties Hurriyat Conference headquarters at Rajbagh in Srinagar when a team of the Jammu and Kashmir police headed by Deputy Superintendent of Police Tanveer Jeelani arrived and told him to accompany them as he had been placed under arrest.

One of the arrested persons, Shazia Begum, had told the police that the money was handed over to her by a Pakistan-occupied Kashmir-based Hurriyat leader Altaf Qadari at a hotel in Nepal.

Senior police officials said that Malik had been arrested under POTO and would be taken to Udhampur, where a case has been registered against the woman and her accomplice.

Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah said the government decided to place Malik under arrest only after the police managed to get 'irrefutable' evidence against him.

However, Malik has denied having anything to do with the woman.

Earlier, as soon as Malik began his opening remarks at the news conference, the police team arrived and told the JKLF leader to accompany them as he had been placed under arrest.

They rejected his plea to let him finish addressing the mediapersons and forced him into a waiting police van.

Following this, nearly 30 JKLF activists, including its vice chairman Javid Ahmad Mir, resisted the arrest and raised pro-freedom slogans.

Some supporters even threw stones at the speeding vehicles of the police who, in turn, fired tear gas shells.

Before his arrest, Malik told reporters that Qadari, whom he described as spokesman (international) of the JKLF and general secretary of the Hurriyat Conference, had not visited Nepal during the last seven years and denied any links with the arrested woman.

"I will quit from the freedom movement if I am proved wrong on these two counts," he said.

He claimed that government had no ground to arrest him under the Public Safety Act (PSA) as he had been inactive for the past 15 months owing to health problems.

Malik said that Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, who was arrested along with Shazia Begum, was associated with the JKLF when the outfit was a militant organisation as a district commander, but not any longer, he said.

"The government is looking for reasons to arrest Hurriyat leaders owing to our stand on the assembly elections. But I did not think it would be done this way," he added.

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