SRINAGAR: With the improvement in situation in the Valley, authorities on Wednesday released senior separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah, who under detention for over five months.
Shah was released this afternoon from police station Rajbagh, where he was lodged after being arrested following outbreak of unrest in the Valley after killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
After his release today, Shah was placed under house arrest at his Sanat Nagar residence in outskirts of Srinagar.
Shah was arrested on July 13, five days after Burhan’s killing.
Shah’s meeting with Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit in national capital on August 18, 2014 had led to cancellation of India-Pakistan foreign secretary level talks.
After Burhan’s killing, separatist leaders began issuing weekly “protest and shutdown calendars” and authorities launched a massive crackdown on separatist leaders and activists and youth for participating in street protests to end the crisis and restore peace and normalcy in the Valley.
Shah alongwith other top separatist leaders including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik were arrested and lodged in jails. Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani was placed under house arrest and not allowed to venture out from his house.
At least 94 people have been killed and more than 13000 injured including over 8000 hit by pellets during over five months of the unrest in the Valley.
However, after the improvement in situation in the Valley and first of the two visits of five-member delegation led by senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha in October, authorities began easing restrictions on separatist leaders.
Mirwaiz, who was arrested on August 27, was released on October 24 while JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik, who was arrested on July 8, was released from jail on October 29. However, Geelani continues to be under house arrest.
A police official said police registered over 2600 FIRs during the over five month long unrest in the Valley.
“We found 6681 people involved in law and order incidents and arrested 5084 of them. Of the 5084 arrested, 500 were booked under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA),” he said.
The official, however, said 90 percent arrested people have been bailed out.
He said police is searching for the people evading arrest.
Meanwhile, police arrested Abdul Gani Bhat alias Gani Bhai, a wanted separatist activist affiliated with hardline Hurriyat Conference led by Geelani, from a court complex in Sopore in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district today.
“He was arrested while he was entering the Sopore court. He was arrested in a joint operation launched by police and army men,” a police official said.
Gani was wanted by police for organizing and leading anti-India protests in North Kashmir during the ongoing unrest in the Valley and had been evading arrest.