Alleging lack of space for "political" activities, the separatist Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on Friday launched a 10-day 'jail bharo' agitation, with its chairman Yasin Malik and some other supporters being taken into custody.
Malik and his 10 associates were taken into preventive custody after they took out a march from Maisuma area near Lal Chowk and courted arrest, police said.
"The government is not giving us any space (for political activities). But we will not sit silent and will fight against the curbs," Malik told reporters while targeting the PDP-led dispensation of Jammu and Kashmir.
Malik said chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was stifling "dissent" at the behest of New Delhi.
"Sayeed's party used to visit people killed by the army and sympathise with them. Now after getting the (chief minister's) chair, they are trying to be more loyal than the king. But this is a people's struggle and it can't die out due to suppressive measures," he added.
Malik said JKLF cadres would participate in the 'jail bharo' agitation for 10 days and if the government continues to use the same tactics, then the group would come out with another protest programme.
{{/usCountry}}Malik said JKLF cadres would participate in the 'jail bharo' agitation for 10 days and if the government continues to use the same tactics, then the group would come out with another protest programme.
{{/usCountry}}Malik had on Wednesday announced that his organisaation would launch 'jail bharo' agitation to protest the "curbs" on it.
"We wanted to reach the villages of the Valley... But we were detained. There is no political space here," he had told reporters on that day.
The JKLF leader had said Mufti Sayeed wants to pass the six years of his term by keeping the separatists under house arrest and by not allowing any political space. "It is our duty to protest against the curbs," he had said.