Mirwaiz Umar Farooq freed after 19 months
Cleric to address weekly congregation at Grand Mosque
THE MIRWAIZ refused to speak on his prolonged detention, the prevailing political situation in J&K or the recent developments in the South Asian region, the subjects he would frequently talk louder on before his house detention.
The Jammu and Kashmir police said on Wednesday said that separatist leader and the Valley’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is no longer under house detention.
When contacted over the phone around 4 pm, the Mirwaiz said that a contingent of the police continued to be deployed outside his residence in Srinagar’s Nigeen area but it appeared the siege around the premises was being lifted.
The Mirwaiz who heads a faction of Kashmiri separatist parties’ amalgam All Parties Hurriyat Conference was among hundreds of politicians, human rights activists, civil society and trade union leaders and lawyers placed under house arrest or jailed by the authorities ahead of or soon after J&K was stripped of its special status and split up into two Union Territories on August 5, 2019. Most of them have been set free since.
The Mirwaiz refused to speak on his prolonged detention, the prevailing political situation in J&K or the recent developments in the South Asian region, the subjects he would frequently talk louder on before his house detention. He said that he would be addressing the weekly congregation at Srinagar’s Grand Mosque on Friday. If permitted it would be his first such public appearance in many months. Traditionally, incumbent Mirwaiz or chief priest delivers customary pre-namaz speech at the historic place of worship on Fridays which is often followed by a speech by him on current affairs.
Last week, Syeed Ahmed Sayeed Naqashbandi, the grand imam at Jama Masjid had alleged that the Mirwaiz was being prevented from discharging his religious duties for political reasons. He had urged the authorities to release him from house detention immediately. Mutahida Majlis-eUlema (MMU) Jammu & Kashmir, an alliance of religious leaders and organisations, too had expressed its serious concern over the Mirwaiz’s continued detention.
At a meeting held at Mirwaiz Manzil, the Mirwaiz clan’s seat located in central Srinagar, earlier during the day on Wednesday, the MMU had said that due to “continued detention of Mirwaiz Umar the pulpits of J&K’s largest religious and spiritual centre — Jama Masjid Srinagar - has fallen silent for the last 82 Fridays, which otherwise reverberated with the call for Dawah, the Islam’s message for wisdom and preaching Qur’an and spreading the message of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
A statement issued by the alliance said, “This greatly hurts the sentiments of the Muslims, the masses and religious scholars alike, especially those who have deep religious and emotional attachment with the historic masjid and its pulpit.”
Welcoming lifting curbs on Mirwaiz Umar, former chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, “Good to hear about Mirwaiz’s release from arbitrary detention. I hope that hundreds of Kashmiri men languishing in jails in & outside J&K will also be released soon. It’s time they returned home to their families.”