Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Muhammad Yasin Malik was manhandled by the police in Khanyar area of Downtown on Saturday when he was on way to Jamia Masjid, Nowhatta, to lead a protest called by the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL).
“At Khanyar, police stopped the vehicle with Malik in the driver’s seat. Superintendent of police Sajad Ahmed showered his choicest abuses at Malik and the resistance movement,” a Front spokesman said.
“The SP called resistance leaders as terrorists and threatened to kill them all,” he said, “and when Malik objected to the police officer’s behavior and asked him to show some restraint, the officer resorted to hooliganism.”
The SP then ordered his policemen to attack Malik, the spokesman said, and the policemen “virtually dragged” him to the police station.
Malik and another Front leader Bashir Kashmiri were shifted to the police station Kothibagh from Khanyar police station.
In a statement, however, police said: “A team from police station Khanyar was on a routine naka duty when at around 12:10 pm today afternoon a Honda CRV was intercepted. The travelers inside the car were requested to produce the registration papers.”
The statement said that instead of showing the papers, Malik and others “created obstruction in the lawful duty”.
“In this connection police have initiated action under relevant provisions of law. Allegations circulated in certain sections of media pertaining to alleged harassment to these individuals is strongly rebutted,” the statement reads.
The JKLF spokesman ridiculed the police version about the assault, calling it a “glaring proof of police mockery in Kashmir for the past three decades.”
“Police assaulted Malik in front of hundreds of people who were present at the spot and among whom many filmed it too,” the spokesman said.
“These are the same kind of lies police are used to spread after killing innocents and oppressing common citizens and this ugly practice has been going on from the past three decades now,” the spokesman said.
Condemning the police action on Yasin Malik, chairman Hurriyat Conference (M) Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said it was unfortunate to see police “rudely behaving with a prominent pro-freedom leader”.
“Irony is that Malik was assaulted by those who claim to be the champions of democracy and those who claim to be the protectors of people. Today’s incident has once again proved that Kashmir is a police state,” he said.