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Mirwaiz Farooq placed under house arrest in Kashmir

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

The Jammu & Kashmir government has put Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, acting chairman of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, under house arrest.

The mirwaiz was scheduled to leave for New Delhi this afternoon to meet United States President Bill Clinton.

"We were hopeful of meeting the US president. But the administration has sabotaged our effort by putting a large posse of the police and paramilitary forces outside my home at Nageen." Farooq told rediff.com on telephone.

APHC leaders, sources said, had been told a meeting was possible during Clinton's visit to the US embassy in New Delhi.

Farooq said the APHC would press for the appointment of an international arbitrator on Kashmir if they were allowed to go to New Delhi.

The other APHC leaders, including chairman Sayed Ali Shah Geelani, are lodged in Jodhpur jail. They were arrested in September while campaigning for an election boycott in the Valley.

Only yesterday, the state police arrested prominent separatist politician Shabir Ahmed Shah, president of the Democratic Freedom Party, and his supporters when they were leaving for New Delhi to stage demonstrations during Clinton's visit.

Shah had said he would stage a hunger strike outside Parliament when the American president addresses a joint session on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the administration has sounded a general alert in Kashmir for fear of stepped-up militant activity. Following the grenade attacks on the high-security Doordarshan building in Srinagar, security around vital installations in the state has been increased.

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