The Jammu and Kashmir police on Tuesday detained as a preventive measure several separatist leaders who had planned to hold demonstrations in Srinagar on the occasion of World Human Rights Day to protest alleged human rights violations by security forces.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) vice-chairman Javed Ahmed Mir was on Monday night taken into preventive custody from his in-laws' residence in the Zaina Kadal area of downtown Srinagar, police sources said.

Mir, who in the past had staged demonstrations to mark this day, was lodged at the Maharajgunj police station, the sources said.

Senior Hurriyat Conference leader Moulvi Abbas Ansari, who had announced plans to hold a demonstration at Lal Chowk, was picked up by the police at Hazratbal on Tuesday morning and placed under house arrest, they said.

The sources said the detentions were routine and meant to maintain law and order in the city.

The Hurriyat Conference and human rights organisations had organised a seminar, which JKLF chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik and other separatist leaders were expected to attend, to mark World Human Rights Day.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Ahmad Shah asked the international community take note of the alleged human rights violations by security forces in the state.

He said his party would launch a campaign next week to protest against the detention of J&K's political prisoners in jails within and outside the state.

Militant-turned-human rights activist Hilal Ahmad War criticised penal laws, which are in contravention of fundamental human rights.

"Such laws are generally misused by the men in uniform," he said after an abortive bid to hold a rally at the Badshah Chowk in Srinagar.

More reports from Jammu and Kashmir