Police detain Qazi Yasir, foil hunger strike

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 25

Separatist leader and Ummat-e-Islami chief, Mirwaiz Qazi Yasir, was detained by the police here today as he attempted to hold a token day-long hunger strike in solidarity with “political prisoners”.

Yasir was detained from the city’s Press Colony, immediately after he had sat on the hunger strike along with several separatist activists.

Policemen detained Yasir and several other demonstrators and lodged them at the nearby Kothibagh police station. Yasir, who heads Ummat-e-Islami and is a preacher in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, had called for a token hunger strike to express solidarity with political prisoners.

“The hunger strike was aimed at drawing attention to political prisoners in a peaceful manner but the police arrived on the spot to sabotage the strike,” Ummat-e-Islami said in a statement.

The party identified the detained activists as Mohammad Yusuf Mir of DFP, Mohammad Yaseen Attai of People’s League, Ramzan Khan of People’s Freedom, and Ummat-e-Islami members Waheed Khan, Moulana Nissar Nayeemi, Moulana Irshad Attari, Moulana Riyaz Qadri, Mohammad Sidiq and Moulana Ajaz Ahmad.

The party said Yasir continued the hunger strike while in detention at the police station.

“Prisoners are heroes of this nation and inheritors of the struggle which has been founded by half a million martyrs of Kashmir. We can’t let our people rot in jail and stay silent,” Yasir was quoted in the statement issued by his party.