Yasin Malik in preventive custody amid militant threats
By IANSFriday, January 1, 2010
SRINAGAR - Amid intelligence reports that he figures on the target list of militants, separatist leader Yasin Malik was taken into a preventive custody Friday when he was on way to a south Kashmir village to address a rally there, police said.
Malik, who is the chief of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was detained near Awantipura, 25 km from here.
The JKLF chief was to address a rally in Tral in south Kashmir but we stopped him near Awantipura, a police officer told IANS.
The officer said that the state home department has specific inputs that militants were planning to target Malik and other moderate separatist leaders, including Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Earlier last month, Fazal Haq Qureshi, a senior Hurriyat leader and votary of paece talks, was attacked in Srinagar.
Qureshi suffered grave head injuries and is recuperating at his Srinagar residence.
The threat perception comes as Hurriyat and other moderate leaders, outside the conglomerate, had expressed their willingness to talk to New Delhi to resolve the Kashmir issue.
