Jammu And Kashmir: Senior Congress Leaders Put Under House Arrest

Jammu and Kashmir Congress President G A Mir and several other senior leaders were placed under house arrest on Tuesday ahead of their planned visit to parts of Jammu region and south Kashmir, according to a party leader.  “We decided to visit parts of Jammu region and South Kashmir and sent a formal request to the government. We were granted permission. But this morning, when we were supposed to leave for the visit, police was there at my house and the houses of other leaders. They told us that we are under house arrest,” news agency PTI quoted Mir as saying.

A party delegation under his leadership was supposed to visit different areas including Udhampur, Ramban and south Kashmir to interact with party workers, he said.

“Police and government should have sent a formal letter to us for denial of permission, when we had written to them,” he said.

On Monday, five political leaders, who were detained for past four months since the abrogation of Article 370, were released by the Jammu and Kashmir administration. The five leaders released belonged to the National Conference, the PDP and the Congress, who were kept under preventive detention, officials said.

The leaders included Ishfaq Jabbar and Ghulam Nabi Bhat (NC), Bashir Mir (Congress) and Zahoor Mir and Yasir Reshi (PDP), they said. Reshi is considered as a rebel PDP leader who had openly revolted against then chief minister and PDP patron Mehbooba Mufti.

On November 25, two political leaders -- Dilawar Mir of the PDP and Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Democratic Party Nationalist -- were released by the new Union Territory administration.

The Narendra Modi government on August 5 revoked Article 370 to take away Jammu and Kashmir's special status, and bifurcated the state into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, that redrew the map and future of a region at the centre of a protracted militancy movement.