Separatist leader, Jamaat members detained in Kashmir, to be booked under PSA: Police chief Dilbagh Singh

Senior separatist leader Ashraf Sahrai was arrested by Jammu and Kashmir police on Sunday and subsequently booked under Public Safety Act (PSA).

Reports said septuagenarian Sehrai was arrested from his uptown Baghaat residency in Srinagar early Sunday morning. He was subsequently booked under the PSA, sources said.

Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbagh Singh while confirming Sehrai’s detention said besides him about a dozen other members of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K, have also been taken into custody

Sahrai, a longtime aide of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, took over as the chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) in March 2018 when the later stepped down as its head.

The police action comes two weeks after Geelani announced his complete disassociation from separatist politics by resigning from hardline Hurriyat Conference faction as its chairman. Hurriyat Conference is an amalgam of various groups and the TeH is one of it.

Sehrai and Geelani, both strong votaries of implementation of the UN resolutions on Kashmir, have been close associates for the last almost six decades, first in Jamaat-e-Islami J&K and later in the TeH. Sehrai, in his late 70s, is a senior leader of Hurriyat's hardline faction and, like Geelani, has been in and out of jail for years together.

Saharai's son, Junaid, a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit was killed in an encounter along with his associate in Srinagar in May this year.