SRINAGAR: In occupied Jammu and Kashmir, police arrested senior Hurriyat leader and noted religious preacher, Sarjan Barkati, in Shopian district on Saturday.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Barkati’s arrest comes two days after three noted religious leaders, Abdul Rasheed Dawoodi, Mushtaq Ahmad Veeri and Abdul Majeed Dar, were arrested and booked under black law, Public Safety Act, by the occupation authorities.
A family member of Maulana Sarjan Barkati told the media that he was arrested by the police today morning at around 6:45 am.
It is worth mentioning here that Barkati, a resident of the Reban area of Shopian, became a household name during the mass uprising triggered by the extrajudicial killing of popular youth leader, Burhan Wani, in 2016 for his distinct style of sloganeering. He was arrested in October that year and subsequently booked under draconian preventive custody laws.
A cleric and a charismatic crowd puller, Maulana Barkati was released in 2020 after being kept in illegal detention by the occupation authorities for four years. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar expressed serious concern over the arrest spree unleashed by Indian police and troops across IIOJK to suppress the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle.
He said the Indian forces’ personnel have arrested dozens of people including religious leaders during house raids and cordon and search operations across the occupied territory in the last few days and booked many of them under the PSA. He maintained that such brutal tactics cannot force the Kashmiri people to give up their just cause and they will continue their struggle till complete success.
