Alwaght- A top pro-independence leader in Indian-ruled Kashmir has been detained under the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA) which could see him imprisoned for up to two years without a trial.
Yasin Malik, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was sent to Kot Balwal jail in Jammu city from a police station where he had been kept since his arrest on February 22 together with 160 other people. PSA is part of a crackdown on militancy and secessionist campaigns in Kashmir.
The JKLF chairman renounced violence and declared a ceasefire in 1994, but he has been imprisoned multiple times since then.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, denounced "illegal and undemocratic tactics" used by Indian authorities. He and other separatist leaders have called for a strike in Kashmir on Friday.
Tension in the region has been running high since a terrorist bomb attack in Pulawama in Indian-administered Kashmir last month killed at least 40 Indian troops.
The attack, the deadliest in 30 years of the Kashmir conflict and claimed by Pakistan-based JeM terrorist group, escalated into a massive standoff between the two South Asian nuclear-armed powers.
The tensions reached a peak on February 26, when India said it had conducted “pre-emptive” airstrikes against what it described as a militant training camp in Pakistan’s Balakot.
Islamabad confirmed the attack and condemned the violation of its airspace but denied that the purported target had been hit.
Days later, the Pakistani military captured an Indian pilot after shooting down his MiG-21 fighter jet, which Islamabad said had violated Pakistani airspace.
The flare-up appeared to be easing after Pakistan handed back Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in a goodwill gesture toward India but the tensions have dragged on.
Mountainous Kashmir, which is mostly Muslim, is divided between the two former British clonies, who both claim it in full and have fought two of their three wars over the region since their separation in 1947.
New Delhi has long accused Islamabad of training and arming fighters and helping them infiltrate the heavily militarized Line of Control (LoC) that separates the two sides in the region, a charge Islamabad denies.
India has about 500,000 soldiers in the part of Kashmir it controls, where armed groups are fighting for independence or a merger with Pakistan.
