Geelani’s close aide detained under PSA

Srinagar: Separatist leader and Tehrik-e-Hurriyat party chairman Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai was arrested by the J&K police in a predawn raid at his Srinagar residence on Sunday and subsequently detained him under stringent PSA. Mr Sehrai is a close confidante of separatist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Separatist leader and Tehrik-e-Hurriyat (the) party chairman Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police in a pre-dawn raid at his Srinagar residence on Sunday and the police subsequently detained him under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).

The police and family sources said that a contingent of the police arrived at Mr Sehrai’s residence in Baghaat Barzulla area at 5.30 am and took him along.

Under the PSA, the law enacted way back in 1978 to deal firmly with timber smugglers but later used by successive governments against their political opponents, mainly separatists, a person can be detained up to a period of two years without being tried in a court of law. The grounds of Mr Sehrai’s detention have not been made public yet.

76-year-old Muhammad Ashraf Khan alias Sehrai alias Muhammad Ashraf Ali, is a close confidante of Kashmir’s separatist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani. He replaced him as the chief of TeH in March 2018. The TeH, virtually a breakaway wing of his and Geelani’s parent organization Jamaate-Islami

which was launched by the them in 2004 after reaching an “agreement with the Jamaat, is the dominant constituent of the Hurriyat Conference faction which was until recently being led by Mr Geelani.

However, feeling hurt at being sidelined, nonagenarian Geelani on June 29 announced his decision to quit the Hurriyat Conference.