SRI NAGAR: Police registered an FIR against the banned separatist outfit Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front for issuing a strike call, and questioned two journalists for carrying news based on JKLF’s statement.
In its first statement after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution on August 5 last year, the JKLF had called for a shutdown on February 9 and 11 to mark the death anniversaries of Parliament attack
convict Afzal Guru and JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat.
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A police spokesperson said the law enforcement agency took cognizance of activities of the JKLF and its attempts to incite violence and disturb law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley. The FIR was registered with the Kothibagh police station, Srinagar under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against the separatist outfit for issuing a bandh call. The JKLF affiliates in the Valley, the spokesperson said, have circulated statements urging for violence in the forthcoming days and propagating the messages and activities of an unlawful organisation. “Such activities of unlawful nature compromise the law and order situation and leads to violence.”
Led by Yasin Malik, the JKLF was banned by the central government in March last year. The Centre had also banned Jamaat-e-Islami, a religio-social-political organisation, in February last year. The police, meanwhile, summoned the state correspondent of a reputed English weekly news magazine and a reporter of a local news agency for carrying the statement of the JKLF. While the magazine had carried a news item on the JKLF’s shutdown call, the news agency had circulated news about the shutdown in its daily news bulletin. The two journalists were questioned for about four and a half hours and allowed to go after a group of reporters met Inspector General, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar.