Kashmir’s chief cleric and Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq today alleged that he was placed under house arrest for the second consecutive Friday with all access lanes to his residence barricaded.
Mirwaiz said attempts to prevent him from offering Friday prayers at Jamia Masjid and visiting the martyrs’ graveyard will not erase the memory of those who were killed on July 13, 1931.
“For the second consecutive Friday I remain under house detention – with every lane and by-lane to my residence barricaded, causing inconvenience to the entire neighbourhood,” Mirwaiz said in a post on X.
“Let me make it clear to the rulers, the memory of our martyrs cannot be regulated by them. It resides in our hearts. Facts and history cannot be erased by lockdowns and barring people from visiting the martyrs graveyards or stopping me from going to Jama Masjid on Fridays, not by appeasing narratives or shameful communal distortions, if it resides in the collective memory of people, which it does. The martyrs of July 13 1931 were the frontrunners of the political movement in Kashmir; a people’s just struggle against oppression. They are and will remain our inspiration,” Mirwaiz said.
J&K Police, which directly works under Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, has not come up with any statement on the issue.
Since his release in September 2023 after a prolonged house arrest following the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Mirwaiz has faced intermittent restrictions – at times allowed to lead Friday prayers at Jama Masjid, and barred on others.
